


The Boy

by gubernaculum



Series: The Namesakes [19]
Category: Highlander: The Series, Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-29 15:26:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13929927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gubernaculum/pseuds/gubernaculum
Summary: Secrets never stay that way





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what happened, but the story vanished and it was a while before I noticed.  
> I also apologize for how long everything is taking me. While my daughter is no longer a potato requiring round the clock care, she is now a toddler. Tantrums. Tantrums everywhere!  
> I also apologize for any odd formatting. I have been using Evernote to bounce between phone/laptop/work computer etc and it does weird formatting stuff sometimes and I don't always catch it.

Even though he knew it shouldn't, post-traumatic stress had been a source of embarrassment for Joseph Fischer. He'd always thought of himself as a well adjusted bloke, with proper and healthy coping mechanisms. Sure, being kidnapped, tortured, and drugged would leave anyone traumatized. Fish wasn't so delusional he thought he'd escape some nightmares, or some jumpiness, but the panic attacks, flashbacks, claustrophobia, and agoraphobia had been a different story. For a while, Fish had been unable to leave his home. The idea of stepping outside the safe walls of the loft he shared with his husband crippled him with panic and terror.

Fish had always thought therapy was a bit rubbish. His Mum had forced him to see a therapist after his father had died, and all the tosser had done was take his mother's hard earned money, and listen to Fish drone on about school. With that prejudice in mind, he had still sought help in the form of a UNIT therapist recommended by Ianto, Doctor Angel Vasquez. Vasquez had diagnosed Fish with acute stress disorder, which he'd later changed to post-traumatic stress disorder as Fish's troubles continued. 

In the beginning, things had been so bad, he'd only been able to fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion, only to wake up screaming, bathed in sweat. He'd have panic attacks and flashbacks. He'd been a prisoner in his own home. Under Doctor Vasquez's guidance, and the use of medication, the flashbacks had ended and the nightmares had become less and less frequent. To Fish's surprise, Vasquez hadn't only been interested in the source of his PTSD. He regularly helped Fish unpack and sift through other major traumas in his life, such as his failed wedding. 

Fish didn't need a therapist to tell him that Olivia Marie Porter had done a serious fucking number on him. Until now, he'd thought he'd done a good job of handling it, but through more sessions with Vasquez, Fish realized he hadn't been handling it as well as he'd thought. Which was why he'd he sent Henry off to his studio to paint, so he could sit on their sofa and stare at a disintegrating, manky cardboard box with ‘Olivia' scrawled on the side. 

It was a box he had held onto for over ten years.

If anything, this box should've been the first glaring clue that he wasn't handling it as well as he thought. The cardboard was worn around the edges and a bit crushed on one side. The black marker of Olivia's name was scuffed and faded. Inside, there was a hodgepodge of items-some clothes and some knickknacks, papers, a couple CDs, a lot of loose photographs, and a couple pieces jewelry. For a few years after their break up, Fish would receive a polite letter or e-mail from his ex every once in a while asking for an item's return. If it was in the box, Fish would pack it and send it back to her. If it wasn't, he would tell her so, and that would be the end of it. Eventually, those requests had slowed and then stopped. But the box remained.

When he'd first told Henry about the box, his lover had stated the obvious to him. Why hadn't he just sent the entire box to her with that very first request? Fish hadn't been able to answer the question. When the requests had stopped, Fish hadn't thrown the thing out either. Even though he was married to someone else, he still couldn't do it, though he had tried. Henry had been understanding. When they'd moved in together, he hadn't said a word when Fish had slid it into the back of the guest room closet. But having the box in their home felt wrong and he'd been trying to throw the damned thing away, on and off, since he and Henry had moved in together. Nearly half a dozen times the box had sat out only for him to slide it back into the closet again. The last time was shortly after their first wedding anniversary. 

Now their second was approaching and Fish had decided the bloody thing had to go. It was time. It was beyond time. He didn't want it to end up in Torchwood storage or for Henry to have to deal with it. Fish was determined this time and the box had been sitting in their lounge ever since they'd gotten home from Australia two weeks ago. 

During their last phone session, Vasquez had hit the nail on the head, telling Fish that he was a scientist. It was part of who he was to be a problem solver and to figure out the why of things. And here was one situation where he couldn't do that. He hadn't thrown the box away because it represented the hope that one day Olivia would ring or e-mail asking about some random item and maybe he'd find out exactly what had happened. The box was his closure and his white whale. 

_Call me Ahab._

The incorrect quote made him roll his eyes even though he as alone. Fish scrubbed at his face. He picked up his laptop, and in a gross misuse of Torchwood resources, he tapped out Olivia's name and national insurance number. It didn't take long for it to return a hit.

He smiled. Olivia Marie Porter was now Olivia Marie Dumont. Olivia had remarried. Well, not remarried, just married since she'd technically never married him. And she was a mother? Now that surprised him. He and Olivia had vowed never to have children. Fish was glad she'd found a measure of happiness especially when he was so over the moon with Henry. 

With another smile, Fish saw that his ex-fiancée was living in Cardiff. He was surprised they'd never run into each other. With the dangers of life as a Torchwood field operative, Fish had been in hospital more times than he'd liked to remember and Olivia was a nurse. He picked up his mobile and dialed, feeling butterflies in his stomach. He thought he was a bit mad for doing this, but Vasquez was right. It was time to let it go properly, not toss it into the rubbish bin, but face the reason he'd held onto the bloody thing for so many years in the first place. 

"Hello?" a cheery voice asked. 

"Umm… Hi, Livie..." Fish stammered. "It's-"

"JOE?!" she nearly screamed. 

Fish winced. She sounded anxious. Fish couldn't blame her. If he was in her shoes right now, he'd be anxious too. "Yeah, it's me. How are you, Livie?" 

"I'm... I'm fine, Joe... What's umm... Umm... what's this all about?" she asked. She was just anxious, she was near panic. Fish felt badly for doing this. He wondered if he should have sent an e-mail or done something more indirect. 

"I just... I've got this box with some of your things. And I was hoping I could... you know... maybe... give it back," he stammered. He started picking at a loose thread on his jeans. When he'd only thought it out in his head, it had sounded kind of daft but now that he'd said it aloud it sounded completely fucking insane. 

"You... wait, what?" she asked with disbelief. 

"Look, I know it sounds mental-me ringing out of nowhere like this after all this time about some box-”

"A bit, yeah," she said, a little amused. The panic had faded. 

"-but I was hoping we could talk too.”

"Talk?" the panic returned. 

Fish picked at a pill on his jumper, twisting it nervously in his fingers. "Just about... us... what happened and everything..."

"Are you all right, Joe? You're not sick or something are you?" she asked, concerned. 

Fish let out a nervous laugh. "No, I'm not sick, Livie. I just... I just wanted to talk. If you don't, that's fine. I'll just send on these things if you don't mind." 

"It's been years, Joe," she said, wary. "I'm sure that I can do without anything you still have." 

"I know. I just feel bad chucking it out..." the way you chucked out me... "Look, my anniversary is at the end of June-”

"And your wife wants my things out of your house already?” she offered, amused again. 

"No," he said with a laugh. After all the pain and heartache Olivia had caused him, he decided to play a bit of a dirty trick on her. An evil grin broke out over his face. Very clearly, he said, "My husband doesn't have a problem with them."

"Wait, what?" she asked, shocked. "Your... Wait, Joe, did you say husband?”

He tried his best to keep the growing laughter out of his voice and to sound like he was on an angry tirade. Picturing the offended and scandalized look on Henry's face didn't help contain his laughter as Fish tried to put on a more stereotypical lisp and lightness to his voice. "Look, after everything went tits up with you, I swore off women and went bender-"

"Joe?"

"-completely gay-”

"Joe...” 

"-a gigantic poof, really-”

"Joe.”

"-and after a lot of therapy and medication-"

"Joe!”

"-I realized it was for the best because I really enjoy being done up the arse-" 

"JOE!"

He couldn't keep it going. He broke down laughing. "I had you for a minute there didn't I, Livie?" 

"Joseph David Fischer, that was not funny!" she snapped. 

When Olivia called him by his full name, in that tone of voice, as if she was his mother, it had annoyed him the same way Henry's commanding tone did. Now, it made him smile nostalgically, tugging on memories.

Still laughing, he said, "Oh c'mon, Livie, it was a little funny." 

Olivia sighed deeply. Fish could picture the exasperation on her face, the furrow to her brow and the thinness of her mouth. She said, a little sad, "I suppose I deserved that and more." 

Fish turned serious. "Honestly, Livie, I don't want to go through it over the phone. I'd like for us to be adults about this and have a serious talk. If you don't want to, that's fine. I understand it's been a long time." 

She didn't answer him and, once again, Fish could picture her in his mind. He'd bet anyone a thousand quid Olivia was biting at her cuticles or her lip, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other. 

"I've moved on, Joe," she said, softly. 

"I know. I don't want to stir up the past, if you've buried it. I'm not trying to make you feel bad but..." he trailed off and sighed deeply. "I know it's been a long time and that I'm with someone else, but I haven't been able to put it to bed yet. Not really. Not as much as I'd like. I know that makes me sound pathetic or like a nutter or something, but it's the truth. I don't want to disrupt your life, Livie. I don't want to upset your husband or your son-"

Angry, Olivia interrupted him. "You know, Joe, at first you having my mobile was just a little odd. Now? This is just plain creepy. Are you stalking me-"

"No, Livie," Fish insisted. He said, quickly, "I work for the government. I just... I looked you up in a database for your address and number. Your husband and your son came up automatically. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have done. I swear, I didn't look any further. I just want to hand you a box, have a bit of a chat and go. You'll never have to see me ever again. Cross my heart." 

_Bugger all!_ The moment those three words were out of his mouth, Fish grimaced and wanted to take them back. The phrase had spilled out automatically. It had been something that had started on their very first date. Fish had shyly kissed the back of Olivia's hand. She'd asked him if he would ring her tomorrow and Fish had said, 'Cross my heart...' It had become a phrase of affection between them. It was their version of ‘I love you'. 

In a soft voice, Olivia said, "Next Tuesday at noon. You have my address. I'll see you then, Joe."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Fish's father had always said the sign of a good holiday was when you were glad to return to home and work. By the time Fish's six months of medical leave was done, he'd been more than eager to return to Cardiff. The city may be halfway around the world from where he'd been born, but it had become home. Once back in the city, Fish had taken his time settling back down. It had been two weeks before he'd rang Olivia, and he'd taken another week before returning to the Hub. 

From the moment Fish had left on the extended leave, he'd known he would return. When he'd phoned Jack to arrange his first day back, Jack had delicately inquired as to whether or not Henry would also be returning as their butler. Fish had passed along Henry's regrets, claiming his husband missed his art. He'd hated to lie to Jack, because the truth was that Henry was holding onto a fair bit of resentment right now. 

Whilst they'd been away, Henry had subtly and not so subtly tried to get him to remain in Australia. To be fair, Fish hadn't helped. He was a man of planning and he liked to explore his options thoroughly. When a tenure track faculty position at the University of Western Australia had opened up, Fish had investigated the possibility even though he was woefully under qualified for the position. Even though he had interviewed with the hiring committee, it had gone nowhere, but it had sent the wrong message to his husband. Henry had thought Fish was planning on staying and seeking another career path.

Then, Fish's brother-in-law, Robert, had had a health scare. Henry had capitalized on it, immediately. He'd gone on about how Anna would need Fish's help with Emily and Peter so that she could be there for Robert. But Robert's persistent cough had turned out to be nothing more than severe bronchitis, not lung cancer as they'd all feared given Robert's history of heavy smoking. With the perfect means of staying in Perth gone, Henry became more and more vocal in his objections to Fish returning to Torchwood. His strongest objection was that Fish had been through enough, but that was precisely the reason Fish didn't want to leave. He didn't want what had happened to him to chase him away. He didn't want to be a victim.

Most of all, being a part of Torchwood meant something to him. Everything he'd done in his life was for the greater good. He tried to use his intellect to the betterment of humanity, and at Torchwood, he was doing that better than he could anywhere else in the world. His work at Torchwood was his legacy and part of his home.

When the damp air of the Hub hit his nose, Fish grinned. Ianto had set out a large breakfast feast in the boardroom to celebrate. Fish was overjoyed to finally hug Gwen in person. He’d seen all the pictures of his friend’s expanding belly. Now past the halfway point and nearly into the third trimester, she and Rhys had finally begun to relax and celebrate. This was their fourth pregnancy. Fish joyfully presented Gwen with a number of baby items he’d purchased all over Asia and Gwen had accepted with equal joy.

Jack and Ianto also introduced him to their new addition, Ben Murphy. Jack had warned Fish beforehand about Ben's abrasiveness, but Fish had gotten none of that from the young man. Fish wasn't worried. If he could handle John Hart, he could handle Ben Murphy. Fish was disappointed Alicia was nowhere to be seen as it was her day off.  Her addition to the team had surprised him the most. Ianto had been evasive when Fish had questioned them about the reasons surrounding her expulsion from MiB and subsequent employment at Torchwood. 

Alicia had been Fish's original recommendation for MiB's deputy director position and had been disappointed when they'd hired Chris Purser instead. Alicia had been more qualified than Purser, albeit slightly, and it didn't take a genius to figure out the hiring committee had gone with testicles over tits. Alicia had tried to downplay her disappointment, but Fish could tell the sexism upset her. It was probably just another incident in a long line of them that dated all the way back to the Naval Academy for her. 

After breakfast, the team wandered back to their posts, and Fish went with Jack into his office. Jack gently shut the door, then gestured at the chair opposite his desk. Instead of sitting in his own chair, he leaned against the edge facing Fish, indicating this was starting out as a friendly conversation, not a professional one. Fish sat down, then angled the chair so he could see Jack's door out of the corner of his eye. If Jack noticed, he didn't say.

“It’s good to have you back. We loved the pictures," Jack said with a smile.

“Which ones?”

“All of them,” he said. “Looks like you and Henry had a great time.”

Fish nodded. “We did, but it’s good to be back home. If Henry had his way, we’d still be visiting temples in India, wandering the streets of Kyoto, and figuring out how to say 'thank you' in Korean.” 

"Gamsahamnida," Jack said.

"You don't know a single word in Welsh and we live in Wales, but you know how to say 'thank you' in Korean?" Fish teased.

Jack smiled and shrugged, then said, "I'm sorry Henry didn't want to come back too."

Fish fidgeted in his chair, uncomfortable. Last night, he and Henry had nearly had a row over his return to work... again. This morning had been more than a little tense as he'd left the loft. This wasn't a subject he wanted to delve into with Jack yet. Thankfully, Jack realized and said, "I just wanted to have a little talk before you really dove back in.”

“That’s kind of ominous on my first day back,” Fish said, crossing his legs.

Jack strode behind his desk and sat down. “Doc Vasquez said you’ve made lots of progress and you’re cleared for full duty.”

“He was a big help,” he said, nodding. 

“The last time we talked, you said you wanted to ease back in, and I think that’s a good idea,” Jack said. He sat forward, his hands clasped on the desk in front of him. “I trust you to know your limits. How does two days a week sound to start? We can bump it up or you can stay that way as long as you want.”

The old Fish would’ve loudly protested, but this four-fingered Fish with PTSD just nodded. "Sounds good, Jack."

“I also don’t want you rushing back into the field. I know you want your field certification back, but I’d like to play it by ear, see how you feel. We can start with small things. And like before, you’ll be back-up only.”

“I trust your judgement.” He flexed the remaining fingers of his left hand. “I know it’s going to take some time. And now that Ben and Alicia are here, I don't feel like a complete tosser for taking it easy.”

“How are you doing, Fish?” Jack asked. Even though he was behind his desk, his tone was fatherly. He was asking as Fish's friend, not as Torchwood's captain. 

Fish felt a phantom twitch in his missing finger and avoided Jack’s gaze. “I’m sleeping better. I haven’t needed the sleeping pills in a while, but I still have nightmares. It’s not as often as it was but it’s still more often than I want, if that makes sense.” He looked down at his lap, swallowing hard. “I don’t like being pinned and get twitchy in crowds.”

He jerked his hand over his shoulder. "I don't like my back to doors. The claustrophobia worried me the most about coming back. We took a train in China and when it went through a bloody tunnel I damn near had a heart attack.” He pointed upwards. “I was worried I’d have a problem with the Hub.”

One of the common methods of dealing with panic attacks and flashbacks was to discover what triggered them, so it could be avoided. Unfortunately, the only way to discover triggers is to have attacks. One night, Henry had leaned forward as they'd made love, pressing himself into Fish's back. The panic had been instantaneous and overwhelming, but at least, it had happened privately. The sudden darkness and metallic sound of the train in China had sent him into an emotional and mental tail spin, publicly. By the time the train had emerged, Fish had been shaking in Henry’s arms, crouched between the seat and the floor hyperventilating with a train carriage full of concerned people staring at him. For a while, Fish lived in constant fear of an attack caused by some yet unknown reason. 

“Your medication’s okay? Side effects?” Jack asked. 

“They’ve pretty much all smoothed out. Don't get me wrong, it took a long time, but the dry mouth's gone. I've put on a fair bit of weight, but that could be from not chasing after aliens for the past six months and over eating. I'm much better, though. I feel like I have control of my life again. Vasquez has been discussing lowering my doses if I handle coming back all right.” 

"Since Henry's decided to not return, Ianto is thinking about hiring someone on," he said. 

Fish nodded. "That's fine, Jack. I don't know if he'll change his mind or not." He paused then said, "Jack, not that I'm upset about the extra staff, but what changed you mind? You never wanted us to have this many people." 

The immortal man waved behind him. "It's time we had lives." He picked up a folder and handed it to Fish. "You're still on the cleaning, pet, and Weevil rota. These are the new ones we've worked out to include Alicia and Ben. Right now I've got you on for Monday and Thursday but don't feel like that's set in stone. You can pick any two days you feel like and change them whenever you want, just give Ianto a heads-up."

Fish took the folder and nodded. "Thanks, Jack." 

"Ben was part of the UNIT team that covered for us while we were in America, so he's pretty well trained up. I don't want him coordinating on his own yet though. Technically, he's still UNIT while he serves out the rest of his five years, then he'll be ours. Alicia's only been here a couple months, so I'd like for you to help her through the systems. She's going to be taking over a lot of the government liaising from Ianto. That folder's got a team schedule too. I've left you off swing and night duty." 

"Why did Alicia leave MiB? Ianto wouldn't tell me," Fish asked, tucking the folder under his arm. 

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that either. If you want to know, you're going to have to ask her," Jack replied, smoothly. 

Fish nodded. "Any changes to the systems? Upgrades?"

Jack shook his head. "Everything is as you left it. Feel free to take a look though. Some of the upgrading and the maintenance may have slipped through the cracks." 

"Anything else you need me to know, Jack?" he asked. 

"Just that I missed you, Fish," Jack said, standing. He tugged Fish out of his chair and hugged him, hard.  

Fish thumped him on the back. “It’s good to be back. And I missed you too.”

“A part of me wishes you’d never come back,” Jack said, softly as he pulled back. He kissed Fish’s lips gently and as chastely as Jack Harkness could. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Jack.” Fish blushed a little. He waved around the Hub. “Henry's got a stick up his arse about it, but I couldn’t leave this. This is who I am. I want to be here and I belong here.”

A strange look came across Jack’s face and he quoted, “’I never believed in fate until where I wanted to be and where I needed to be ended up being one in the same.’”

Fish liked the quote, but had never heard it before. "That's exactly how I felt when I came down the invisible lift that first time. Who said that?”

“You did,” Jack said, smiling.

Fish gave him a confused look that Jack returned with a wink. "Your workstation is in the same place." 

After a squeeze of Jack's arm, Fish went back out into the Hub. He breathed deep of the damp, slightly musty air, feeling as if he'd completely come home.

Even though he was pleased to be back at work, the day had been draining. Fish arranged with Ianto to switch his second day from Thursday to Friday. He didn't tell his friend the true reason for the switch and didn't correct any of Ianto's assumptions that it had to do with it being his first week back and wanting to take it easy. Fish wanted work as a distraction, to keep his nerves in check for meeting Olivia.

Thursday, he rang Olivia to confirm the time. She'd told him her husband was going out with friends and her son would be at a friend's. She'd offered to cook dinner for him, and even though Olivia was an awful cook, Fish agreed. As he left the loft Friday morning, he pilfered a bottle of wine from his husband's stock, and stopped for a loaf of bread on his way into the Hub. He'd thought about flowers or something, but it was odd enough having dinner with his ex-fiance. It would be downright weird to bring flowers too. When he'd left, Henry hadn't been happy, even though he hadn't been to work since Monday. To put an even bigger thorn in his day, around lunch, Olivia rang and asked him to reschedule for Sunday at ten in the morning. 

Disappointed, and drained from the anxiety, Fish left work early and returned home. 

But on Sunday, just as he was shrugging into his coat, Olivia rang, again, to cancel and reschedule for Tuesday. 

On Tuesday, Fish received an answer phone message. His ex was cancelling again.

This disappointing pattern continued over the next two weeks. Fish would drag the box to and from the Hub only to have Olivia cancel on him. The reasons were varied, but mostly they had to do with her son and his activities or friends. Last time, her son's piano lesson had been switched at the last minute. The most recent had been an impromptu sleep over with friends causing Olivia to be swamped with three other children. He wished she'd just tell him he was being a creeper and that she didn't want to talk to him. He should probably just take the hint, drop the box at her front door and walk away, but he couldn't.

Henry had started out being supportive, but his patience evaporated fast. It had absolutely nothing to do with the box of Olivia's things. Fish didn't understand it and it hurt him. That box had been there as long as they'd been together and Henry hadn't once said a word about it. Now, he was lashing out at Fish with snide comments every time he returned home with the box. Today's was rather scathing.

"I believe I hear Idina Menzel's voice on the air, Joe, imploring you to let it go."

Wincing, Fish pushed down the hurt that only further stirred the emotional sewer swirling in him.

Henry pointed at the box and said, "Give me her address, Joe. I can drop it to her on my way to my studio tomorrow."

Fish protectively pulled the box away from his husband's grip. "I'm handling this, Henry."

Henry thumped the box with his finger. He poked, "Clearly, you are not."

His patience wearing thin, Fish snapped, "Oi, leave off."

"Joe, this is distressing you. Every time that woman cancels, you come home like a whipped pup," he said. 

The nasty reference to Olivia raised Fish's heckles. "I can't just 'let it go', Henry. She's busy. She's juggling work and family. Things come up when you have kids and I shouldn't have to tell you that."

Fish shoved the box next to the front door and went into the kitchen. He took out some left over chicken from the fridge and went about heating it up, though his appetite was rapidly fading. "And if you've nothing supportive to say, I'd rather you kept your mouth shut."

He slammed the fridge door and roughly opened the containers. After additionally slamming the microwave door, he added, "You know, these past two weeks haven't been easy for me and you biting my head off about that bloody box isn't making it better."

"Perhaps if you weren't inundating yourself with work, things would be more manageable," Henry snipped.

Fish pulled his plate out of the microwave and slammed the door again. "That bloody stick in your arse again?" He turned and barked. "How is a couple days a week inundating?"

"It has been three days in a row, for nearly twelve hours each day since you returned. That isn't a part time return, Joe, that is a full time commitment!" Henry cried.

"I've been back three weeks, Henry. The first week was two days, for four hours each. Last week it was two days, also for four hours. This week has been three days in a row for twToday, a blowfish flipped a sports car into a bus," Fish said, throwing his hand out to the side. "What do you want me to do, Henry? Have Gwen waddle around the Hub while I cry off? This was the second time I've set foot outside the Hub since I've been back and the other time was to fetch the take-away."

"Private Murphy and Alicia-"

"Don't have field clearances yet, and they don't know the internal systems well enough to coordinate on their own," Fish insisted. "I'm also only there two or three bloody days a week so it's harder for me to train them."

"I'm certain the others-" 

Fish slammed his hand down on the worktop. "Enough, Henry."

He'd lost his appetite. He picked up his plate and walked over to the bin. After stepping on the pedal, he chucked the uneaten food in and put the plate into the dishwasher. "We've been over this for years now and I'm getting bloody tired of repeating myself. I love my job and it's important to me. You keep saying it's my decision and that you respect it, but we keep skipping back to this subject like a broken fucking record and I've had it." He slammed the dishwasher shut and turned. "Honestly, when was the last time I brought up the Game, eh? Didn't think I didn't notice how many times you'd come home with blood on your shirt or the fading bruises while we were gone? Fucking me senseless wasn't enough of a distraction. You were burning off the adrenaline with me."

"That is entirely-"

"Different? Another fucking point I thought we'd put to bed!" Fish shook his head. He rested his elbows on the worktop and dug his fingers into his temples. I can't do this anymore... Instead of leaving the words unsaid, as he had millions of times before, he muttered, "You know what, I can't do this anymore."

He walked out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, Henry on his heels. He reached into the walk-in closet and pulled out his go bag.

"Joe? What are you doing?" Henry demanded.

"I think we both need some time to think about this," Fish snapped. "I am done reliving this subject over and over again, ad nauseum. I'm fucking sick of it, because you and I both know this isn't about Olivia's things, or my bloody job. This is about you continuing to, over and over, punish me for the fact that I'm going to die someday which is a load of shite because there's nothing I or anyone else can do about it." He stood up with his bag over his shoulder and roughly pushed past Henry. As he stormed towards the door to the loft, he said, "You know, back when it was just the five of us, yeah, I understood how upset you were about it. The chances of me going to work and never coming home again were pretty fucking high. In fact, Evie warned me about it when they hired me. What I really don't understand is that you were more accepting of it than you are now. Now? There's John and Ben and Alicia. Ianto, Jack and Evie are all immortal. There are eight of us on the team. Eight. I'm at the Hub two, three days a week tops. The chances of me going to work and getting shot by a blowfish are effectively zero now. I am field back-up only. I am in the Hub only a few days a week. I have made every single fucking concession, trying to reach some sort of compromise here."

Henry said, "There are still significant dangers-" 

"And you're still on it!" Fish shouted. He grabbed his trainers next to the door and sat down to put them on. "Do you understand the definition of compromise, Henry? Being in the field was the best part of my job. I gave that up, for you. Even before all this post traumatic stress shite, I reduced my hours at the Hub, for you. What fucking concessions have you made, eh? I keep giving and giving and it's never going to be enough until I resign, is it?" 

Henry's silence was all the answer he needed. 

"Fine. Fuck you, then," Fish snapped. "You know, you act like I have some fucking death wish, like I'm all ready to sacrifice myself for the greater good, but I don't. That's actually the last fucking thing I want to do. I can't live forever with you and you have got to stop punishing me for it. Matthew may have put up with this shite for forty fucking years, but I won't."

The last thing he did was pick up Olivia's box. "You'll have fucking forever to mourn me when I'm dead, Henry, and you've decided to waste the time we actually have together living like I'm dead already."

"Joe, wait-"

"No, I'm done," his voice breaking. He turned and said, "You have no idea what this does to me, do you? Do you know how fucking guilty I feel every single day that I'm going to die and leave you alone?" Angry tears escaped and he quickly scrubbed them away. "I'm right here, Henry. I'm right here, and every day I feel like I'm already gone." He wiped more tears, angry at himself for them. "It's not just this argument about my bloody job. Every day, you look at me with grief in your eyes. We make love it feels like we're saying goodbye. I wanted to share my life with you, not mourn it."

Fish kicked the loft door aside and stepped through it. He wasn't sure if he was disappointed or grateful Henry didn't try to stop him. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next few days, Fish made several trips to the loft to pick up clothes and other items, usually sneaking in whilst he was positive Henry would be in his studio. His husband didn't like to linger in their shared space when they were fighting this badly. Thankfully neither Ben nor Alicia said anything when he appeared in their living space, not that Alicia seemed to be in her room much. No one else said anything when he was magically at the Hub every day either. Blissfully, the rift had been steady, but not overwhelming, and Fish thanked whatever God there was for it. It was just enough work to keep him distracted from his imploding personal life, but not so much he was inundated.

Most of all, it helped him to adjust to his nine-fingered status. In the six months he'd been away, he hadn't exactly been typing a lot of reports and fiddling with alien technology. Aside from fixing his sister's lawnmower a few times, he hadn't done any sort of work. He was fumbling more with his tools than he used to, and he still had some issues typing, but he was improving quickly. Typing was the worst. Often he'd wonder why letters weren't appearing only to remember that the finger meant to be typing them was gone.

Though Fish was at the Hub constantly, he wasn't working the entire time. He set some clear rules for himself, working only on those days when he was scheduled for shifts. The rest of the time, he caught up on his stagnant side projects and assisted in training Alicia and Ben, which was technically work but Fish refused to quantify as work. Fish had gone more in-depth with the internal systems for Alicia, and to his delight, Ben had good instincts with the tech. They were both eager pupils and the training had been going well.

To Fish's disappointment, Alicia hadn't elaborated on why she was now with Torchwood. The only thing he'd been able to determine was that the whole thing had something to do with her sister now residing at Flat Holm. She had a delighted glow about her and radiated happiness so Fish didn't question her too much. 

While he'd been gone, it had swelled in size and needed serious tending. Hart had done what he could, but he was only one person. Strictly speaking, the tech backlog was also work, but Fish had listed it under the category of non-work. One of Fish's great joys was tinkering for the sake of it, and he had plenty of free time to indulge now. Currently in front of him was some sort of medical device, or at least Fish thought it was a medical device. One of the hardest things about the tech was figuring out whether or not something was broken, or he just didn't know how to turn the thing on. That's what he was trying to determine when Jack knocked his hand lightly on his desk. Fish lifted his head and his eyebrow. It might look like he was working, but he was just tinkering to keep himself busy. He wasn't really on the clock. He was about to say that, but Jack said, "I know you're not really here, Fish, and that you don't have your field certification, but there's been an incident at University Hospital and I don't trust this tech to anyone else except John and he's out on another call with Ianto." 

Fish nodded. "Sure, what's going on, Jack?" 

From behind Jack, Miranda said, "Several staff over at the hospital went mad. Two of them beat a patient and a nurse to death and one is catatonic." 

"I'll get my coat," Fish said.

"Do you mind if we take your car, Fish? Ianto and John have the SUV and Alicia's borrowed Ianto's car again," Jack asked. After Fish passed him the keys, he said as he walked away, "Garage in five." 

Fish shrugged into his coat and collected his wallet, keenly aware of Miranda's eyes on him. She'd been somewhat stuck in the middle of their domestic dispute. Fish had demanded Henry give him space, but his husband continued to text, ring, and e-mail him. Over the past few days, Henry had roped his former teacher into attempting to pass messages. 

He sighed, flicking his gaze to her, then rolled his eyes. "It's all right, Evie. You can say it." 

"Henry would like you to ring him back so you two can talk," she said. 

"I suppose you have your opinion on all this?" he said, harshly. 

She shook her head. "It isn't my place to express opinions regarding your marriage." 

"But you think Henry's right," he said.

"It's not a matter or right or wrong, Fish. And no, since you asked, I don't think he is right. I think that Matthew is rolling in his grave as we speak," she said. 

"But...?" 

"But I believe moving out has worsened the situation." She waved at the north stairs. "This separation is only poking at his greatest fear-losing you. It's going to make him act more irrationally. His reaction will be like a snapped elastic."

Fish waved around the Hub. "We have more staff around and there are three immortals on the team. Four when Henry's here. I'm only field back-up and I'm only in the Hub a couple days a week. Sure, anything can happen, but I feel like my 'anything can happen' is more level with a normal person's 'anything can happen'. I feel like I've got a decent shot at going out from my kidneys shitting out or ending up with cancer. But that hasn't made it better, it's made it fucking worse. It's never going to be enough. I could resign and he'd still find something to nag me about... like not using fucking sunscreen or eating too much saturated fat and salt or something." He shook his head and sighed. "I'm living downstairs because I can't think straight when he's around. If I was at home with him, watching him mope, listening to him argue, it'd be easier for him to wear me down to the point where I'd just let it go again. This mourning me before I'm gone? I can't do it anymore, Evie. I love him. I love him so fucking much, but I can't have him hanging my death over my life, casting a shadow over everything. I won't spend my life obsessed with its ending." 

She nodded and said, "Jack will be getting impatient." 

They walked in silence to the garage. Jack leaned out of Fish's car and said, "Let's move, you two!" 

Fish politely opened the back passenger door for Miranda and got into the front passenger seat. He’d learned long ago that it was better for him to be a passenger in his own car rather than listen to Jack whinge about not getting to drive. 

"You said it was a piece of tech that did this?" Fish asked. 

"We don't have specifics yet, but they were all staring at a mobile phone right before they lost it," Jack said. 

With Jack's idea of driving, they were at University Hospital in no time. As always, the police tape was lifted for the familiar silhouette of Jack Harkness's greatcoat. The local police were still investigating, questioning witnesses, and sorting out the story. Fish winced at the blood on the floor. The locals were less than pleased Torchwood was there to confiscate the mobile telephone and security footage. Jack was handling that while Fish was requesting the video.

The head of hospital security was reluctant to give up the footage, but all Fish had to do was flash his credentials, say Torchwood and that was put to rights. If this did turn out to be something alien, Fish would insert a virus into their security system that would delete the footage permanently. While he waited, leaning against a wall, he scratched at his nose. His restlessness grew. He'd spent a significant portion of time here after his capture and torture, and the setting was stirring unpleasant memories. Normally, he'd ring Henry and his husband's soothing English tones would ease his anxiety, but that wasn't an option. The last thing he wanted to do was to fall into their old pattern of arguing about this and then forgetting it all had happened.

Gone were the days he would recite the periodic table. He shook his left wrist, his heavy watch-a gift from Henry-knocking about, grounded him. Trying to distract himself as he waited, he looked around at the police and other forensic investigators going about their job. And that was when he saw Olivia.

She looked almost exactly the same. There were a few more lines around her eyes and the crease in between her brows was deeper, but she was just as beautiful as she'd always been. Her hair was still highlighted blonde and cut short, just the way he remembered. He could see strands of silver in the blonde. He was glad to see that she'd put on some weight. 

Fish had always wondered how Olivia managed to be a nurse. She became frazzled and emotionally frayed quickly. She was easily startled and panicked, often given to excessive worrying. She had many trust and control issues as well as a certain amount of obsessive compulsiveness. But Olivia was one of those people who shined when they were in their own element and Olivia's element was nursing. Oversleeping and missing their return flight whilst on holiday? She'd needed sedatives to calm her down. A crashing patient under anesthesia? She wouldn't bat an eyelash and handle it. It had been one of the mysterious things about her he’d loved.

Now, Olivia was definitely out of her element. Her eyes were red and her hands were shaking. Her bottom lip trembled and he wondered if the PC talking to her could understand a word because Fish was certain her voice would be shaking as well. 

After the last cancellation, Fish hadn't bothered chasing her down, especially since his marriage had begun to implode. He hesitated to walk over to her, but watching her repeatedly drop her mobile telephone attempting to dial it was painful. He walked over just as she dropped the mobile again. He bent down and picked it up.

"Let me get that for you, Livie," he said, softly.

"JOE?!" she screeched. She was so startled she backed into the wall.

Without thinking, Fish reached up and pressed two fingers between her eyes, then ran them down her nose slowly. The touch had been something Olivia's grandmother had done to help centre and calm her down. Soft and soothing, he whispered, "Shhh."

Her eyes focused and some of the panic drained from them. "Let me help you, Livie. Who am I ringing?”

She choked out, "Ian."

Fish brought up her contact list and scrolled through it. He tapped the number marked Ian. He was about to hand the phone over to Olivia, but her hands were shaking so badly, he decided against it and held the phone put to his own ear.

"Olive?" a deep, gruff voice asked.

Fish's eyes widened and he was was so stunned at the nickname, he didn't answer for a second. Olivia hated being called Olive with a passion. He could hear her in his mind, screeching,  _I'm not a bloody martini garnish!_

"No, sir," Fish said. He suddenly realised introducing himself to Olivia's husband this way might not be the best idea. He tried to come up with an ambiguous statement. "I'm with the police-"

"Is Olivia all right?" the man's panicked voice asked. "Has she been hurt?!"

"Don't worry, your wife is fine. There's been an incident at her workplace and she's very shaken. If you wouldn't mind coming down to the hospital to pick her up?" he asked.

"I'll be right there," he said and immediately rang off without another word.

Instead of handing the mobile back to Olivia, he slipped it into the pocket of her scrub top.

"Thanks," she said, her voice still shaking.

He took her by the arm and led her to the nurses' station. He told off the PC sitting in the chair. Once he'd vacated it, Fish sat Olivia down and then sat himself down on the counter.

"Do you want some water? A blanket?" he asked.

She shook her head. She was still distraught, but Fish supposed seeing your coworkers go stark raving mad would do that. The fact they’d also bludgeoned two people to death probably didn't help either. Running into the man you ditched the night before your wedding, probably also also not helping. Her curiosity was overriding her uneasiness. With a slightly unsteady voice, she asked, "You're with the police? You’ve got a job in forensics?”

Fish shook his head. "No, I'm… Uh…"

"Doctor Fischer?" the head of security asked from behind him. Fish turned. "The security footage. Everything from today."

"Thank you," Fish said. He flashed the man a polite smile. "I appreciate this."

The man grunted. As he walked away, he muttered, like a curse, "Bloody Torchwood."

Fish slipped the stick drive into his pocket and turned back to Olivia. All her uneasiness had vanished, and intense curiosity and bemusement had replaced it.

Sod it… "I left ECO UK," he said, shrugging. He cleared his throat. "I can't really talk about it."

Olivia burst out laughing. She pointed an accusatory finger at him. "You always said Torchwood was a lot of nonsense! Complete rubbish! A local urban legend!"

"It is,” he deadpanned. He half sat on the desk edge as he slid his ID out of his back pocket. He subtly flipped it open across his knee. Olivia went a little wide eyed at the geometric Torchwood logo. He added with a wink, “Total rubbish. Utter nonsense. Don’t know what you’re talking about at all, Livie.” 

He was glad to see she was getting a hold of herself. He put his ID away, smiling at her fondly. "You look great, Livie. It's really great to see you." And he was surprised at how much he meant that. 

As he spoke, she was watching him put his ID away. That was when she caught sight of his left hand. She gasped, covering her open mouth. Without thinking, she reached out, taking his hand in her own. “Oh my God, Joe! What happened?” 

He pulled away from her, tucking his hand under his arm. “Nothing.” 

“Joe! I’m a nurse!” she insisted. 

I was taken prisoner by an alien from the future who sliced off my finger like she was boning a fucking chicken. He could feel the panic rising up in his chest as his palms went clammy. No, not now. Not here! He swallowed hard and forced himself to take a deep, slow breath. He shook his wrist, feeling the watch. It’s over and you’re safe now. He shook his wrist again and looked around. _I can see the door. I can feel the table._ Once he’d successfully beat back the anxiety, he took another deep breath. Olivia was looking at him curiously. He forced himself to rest his maimed hand on his leg. He cleared his throat and lied, “An accident at work.” He paused and added, "It could've been a lot worse. I'm still shaken up by it." 

She eyed the scar professionally. “You had an excellent surgeon.” 

Fish could feel the panic threatening to rise up again. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. "I'm sorry we keep getting our wires crossed.”

She said, nervously, "I was dodging you at first, I'm sorry, Joe." 

“Hey, I can take a hint," he said, with a friendly smile. He reached out to pat her arm but thought better of it. "Look, I'll leave you be. It was good seeing you, Livie, and I mean that. Take care of yourself, okay?” 

He got up to walk away, but Olivia rested her hand on his arm. "I said at first, Joe. The past few times, I wasn't. Things really have just gotten in the way."

Fish believed her. "You're busy. I understand." 

Olivia stood up and looked around. "We could talk now…" 

“Livie, you've been through enough today." 

"It'll keep my mind off of all this.” 

"You want to take your mind off of one disaster by bringing up another?" He didn't want to argue with her. He was finally getting what he wanted. He had things he wanted to get off his chest, but mostly he wanted to look her in the eye and tell her how much she’d hurt him… and to tell her he’d forgiven her. But she'd also just been through a major trauma herself. 

"Are you sure, Livie?" he asked. 

With a determined look, she nodded, bracing herself. She wanted to get this over with as much as he did. He nodded and said, “I’ve got your things in my car. I'll be right back." 

Olivia pointed at the door. "I'll be in that office. We can have a bit of privacy." 

Fish nodded. Jack and Miranda wouldn't mind. He was just waiting for them to finish interviewing witnesses. Everything else Fish needed to do, he’d do back at the Hub. It took him twenty minutes to get the keys from Jack, walk to his car, and back up again. Jack politely took them back and told him to take his time. Fish stepped into the office and put the box down on the small table. 

Olivia opened the box flaps and smiled at the mismatched items. Nostalgically, she began sorting through them. "You’ve really held onto all this? I'm surprised you didn't chuck it all."

Fish shook his head. "I couldn't. There's a pair of earrings in there you said your uncle gave you." 

Olivia's eye lit up and she immediately began digging for them. "The sapphire ones? I thought I'd lost them! Oh, Joe! Thank you!" 

"I'd like to say I was being sentimental or polite, but that’d be a lie," Fish said with a sigh. He swallowed, his throat dry. He could feel tears pushing their way up. Very softly, trying to control the tremor in his voice, he asked, "What happened, Olivia?" 

"I got cold feet, Joe," she said, flatly. “I’m sorry.”

The response was instantaneous and well-rehearsed. The idea she thought she could pawn off such a ridiculous cliche on him was offensive. 

"I’m not an idiot, Livie. I don't want whatever daft story you concocted to tell me when I was half pissed, ten years ago. I want the real reason. It's been over a bloody decade for fucks's sake." He didn't want to sound so angry, but he couldn't help it. All the questions that had been rattling around in his head for over a decade rose up to the surface, like a small pebble that starts mudslide. “I thought we were happy. Were you throwing out clues I wasn't seeing? Why didn’t you want to try and work things out? I would’ve gone to counseling, put the wedding on hold, sod the money. Whatever you would've wanted, I would’ve done. I loved you. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I wanted us to grow old together. Was leaving really the only solution for you?” 

His voice was starting to shake, but he didn’t care. The questions had been bubbling in his gut for years and he was finally getting to ask them. “Had I done something? Had I not done something?” 

There was still no answer from her. He realised his voice had steadily been rising and he lowered his volume and asked, almost afraid of the answer, “Had you met someone else?” 

He paused and waited, but Olivia remained silent and the silence unnerved him. He pointed at the battered cardboard box. "I've held onto this bloody thing for over ten years. Ten. Fucking. Years. Doesn't that tell you anything about what you did to me?”

The resentment rose up in him, bitter and harsh, frothing out of his words. “After you left I shut down. I fucking fell apart. I dropped a whole stone and Anna was begging me to eat something. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I just sat on the couch staring at that box because I didn’t know what the fuck to do with it. I shoved it into the wardrobe and Anna forced me to go on this holiday soul searching or some shite and when I got back, I got your e-mail, asking me for your uncle’s watch back. I didn’t realise it until a couple of months ago, but I held onto that bloody box because at first I was hoping that maybe, just fucking maybe, you’d come to your senses and come back to me. That maybe you’d ask for something back as an ice breaker and you’d want to talk and work it out. But you never did. I tried moved on. But my love life turned into one disastrous relationship after another. I hung onto all this stuff because maybe you'd want those earrings back and you'd at least apologise for turning my whole life upside-down and emotionally crippling me or offer me some sort of explanation, but you stopped asking for things back. And then I got married and I still have this fucking thing.” He pushed the box towards her, the contents rattling. “It’s been ten years, Livie, and now I just want to know what the fuck happened. The truth, I'm fucking begging you. I want the truth. I do not care how much you think it'll hurt, because nothing, and I mean fucking nothing you could tell me could ever possibly hurt me more than what you did that night." 

There it was, off his chest and sitting in the middle of the room. The silence between them was heavy, full of loss and regret; of possibility and consequence. He could see Olivia wrestling with it, emotions moving across her face. Normally, his mind would’ve imagined all the possibilities, but it had done that already over the past ten years. Now, he just wondered what the fuck was so awful that she still couldn’t just tell him after all this bloody time. It had been ten years. He'd moved on and was married. She was married and had a family of her own. What fucking difference did it make telling him the truth now that she’d shagged someone else or that she’d realised she’d never loved him or that marrying him would be a colossal mistake or any of the other millions of things he’d though it could’ve been over the years? 

It doesn’t matter… and that was when he realised this wasn’t about reasons. Never knowing why had just been an excuse to not let it go. A lever shifted in his heart. He took a deep breath and said, calmly, “I wish you the best, Livie, I really do. Even then I did. It took me a long time to forgive you, and even longer to forgive myself for whatever I'd imagined I'd done to drive you away. I hope you and your family are happy. You take care of yourself.” He stood up and put his hand on her arm, squeezing it gently. He finally got to say what he never did all those years ago. There was a lightness in his heart.

“Goodbye, Livie.” 

She didn’t even reply. Just sat there, staring at her feet. Fish shook his head and turned towards the door. He didn’t feel the need to wait or even give her another chance to answer. He stepped out of the office with a relieved sigh. Even without answers, he was free. He was glad to be rid of her and that bloody box. Relief washed over him until he realised the first person he wanted to tell all about it was someone with whom he wasn't speaking. Maybe he could ring Henry, tell him anyway. They could start talking-really talking. If he could let this bollocks with Olivia go, he could tackle this problem between him and Henry.

A desperate voice begged one of the PC's, "My wife? Olivia Dumont? Have you seen her? She's a nurse here." 

Fish turned. Olivia's husband was not what Fish expected. He was a short, squat man, extremely thick through the neck and shoulders. Despite his gruff appearance, he was panicked. A young boy was standing next to him, looking down at a handheld gaming device of some sort. All Fish saw was the top of his blonde head. 

"I've got it, constable," he called out. "Doctor Ian Dumont?"

"Yes?" Ian said. He looked desperate and panicked. His eyes were begging. 

"We spoke earlier. I'm Joe Fischer," Fish said, holding out his hand. He cleared his throat. "Your wife is fine."  

"You said Olivia's fine? She wasn't…" Ian trailed off, giving Fish a curious look. He glanced down at the boy and then back at Fish. The Australian accent must have registering in his mind. “Wait? Did you say your name's Joe Fischer?”

Ian tilted his head to hear him better. For the first time in his life, Fish tried to muffle his accent. "Uhh, yes, sir." 

“Australian? Are you... are you Olivia's ex?" 

Fish winced internally. "Erm… yeah, I am." 

Ian held out his hand, a broad smile coming across his face. "I’m Ian, Olivia’s husband. But you knew that already, of course. It's good to finally meet you. She’s told me so much about you." 

Fish couldn’t keep the surprise and confusion off his face as he shook Ian's hand. This certainly wasn’t what he’d expected. He gave a nervous chuckle. “Umm… that's good to hear, I suppose." 

"She said you've been in touch," Ian said brightly. He glanced back at the young boy who'd wandered over towards the door. He lowered his voice. "I'm glad she's finally decided to do the right thing. I must say, you’re taking it a lot better than I would if I was in your shoes.” 

He didn't want to admit Olivia hadn't said a thing to him about why she'd left him all those years ago. Now he was even more perplexed as it was clear Olivia felt guilty enough to confide in her husband. He resisted asking him and speculating. It wasn’t Ian’s place to tell him. He smiled and said, “Well, you know Livie. Maybe she's changed, but she could make hell freeze over avoiding something." 

"She hasn't." Ian laughed heartily. He waved at the scene. "I know this isn't the way it should've been, but I'm glad it's done. We can arrange for you to visit as soon as possible. Whatever works for your schedule." He glanced at Fish's hand and added, "Your wife too, of course." 

Fish hadn't expected to like this man, but he did. The invitation for a visit was strange though. He didn't think popping round to dinner would be a particularly comfortable and fun evening. Without correcting Ian's heteronormative assumption, Fish said, out of manners, "That would be great." 

Then he took Ian by the arm and led further away to make sure the boy didn't overhear them.  

"Livie's fine, but she’s really shaken up," Fish said, softly. He flicked his eyes to the police tape. “Two people were killed. It’s a gruesome crime scene. It’s best if you kept your son away.” 

"My son…" Ian said, confused. He looked back at the boy and then back at Fish. 

Fish saw a flash of angry disbelief on the man's face. It was there for just a second and then it was gone. Fish asked, “Does Olivia still have her regular sedative prescription?" 

Ian nodded. 

"Take her home and give her the maximum dose. She needs to rest. She's had quite a shock. Look, I can tell you know what happened between me and Livie," Fish said. He looked around making sure no one was in earshot. As he spoke, he reached into his back pocket and took his card out of his wallet. He scrawled his mobile number on the back. He handed it to Ian, giving the other man a weak smile. "I'm Torchwood. If you and Livie ever need anything, and I mean anything, please ring. Don't hesitate. Any time, day or night, no matter how strange or unusual it is." 

Ian took the card, looking pensive. "Thank you." 

"I know ringing out of the blue about a box of things from over a decade ago is a bit mental but, honestly, I'm happy she's happy and that she's got a good life. You seem like a good bloke," he said. He flicked his eyes to the young boy. He was now chatting with one of the PC’s, turned away from them. Fish was grateful the PC was keeping the boy away from the grisly scene. He smiled at the back of his sandy blonde head. "You have a beautiful family. Livie and I never wanted kids. She said her jittery nature wasn't conducive to motherhood. I can't believe she changed her mind.” 

Ian cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. "Excuse me, Doctor Fischer-“

"Joe, please." 

"Joe… I'm very sorry I'm the one telling you this, because it's really Olive's place, but if she won't, I feel it’s my duty... man to man, you understand..." 

"Ian?" a nervous voice called out.

The two men turned. Olivia was standing in the doorway, giving her husband a panicked look. Relieved, Ian stepped towards Olivia, hugging her tightly. 

"Olive! Thank God you're all right!" he cried. 

Fish smiled. The sight actually warmed his heart. Olivia was happy with Ian. He was happy with Henry. It all may have seemed a disaster ten years ago, but now, it all felt right. 

"MUM!" the boy cried out. He abruptly left his conversation with the PC and ran for his mother. The PC tried to grab him, but missed. Fish looked up, ready to grab the boy if he made to dart around the nurse’s station. The last thing he wanted was for him to see the bloody floor and walls.

But the blood in his own face drained away and his hands felt like they’d been plunged into ice cold water. His jaw dropped and he could scarcely breathe.

He recognised the boy’s face.

It was a younger version of the same one he saw in the mirror every day.


	4. Chapter 4

"Livie…" he gasped. 

Olivia turned and saw his expression. She pushed the boy behind her, but he was having none of it. He stepped over to Fish, curious. 

Fish tried to speak, but he could barely form the words. He couldn't think of what to say or do. Once they'd made eye contact, the boy stepped forward and held his hand out to Fish, in a precise imitation of adult behaviour. He said, "Hi, I'm David." 

"I'm…" _your father…_ “…I'm Joe.” A hurricane of emotions was swirling through his heart because he could barely manage a coherent thought. He managed to choke out, “How old are you?" 

“Ten and one half,” he proclaimed proudly. 

Fish smiled and let out a nervous half laugh. He took the boy’s hand and shook it. The moment their hands met, Fish’s body recognised its own flesh and blood. A warmth rushed through him and tears prickled at his eyes. He looked at David with wonder and awe. He was the most perfect being Fish had ever seen. When he'd met Henry, he couldn't believe how quickly or deeply that love had formed. Now, a different sort of love exploded like a supernova in his heart and expanded at the speed of light out into something so immense and vast, he could scarcely breathe.

A reactive implosion followed. The love and wonder and awe collapsed in on itself, coalescing into a dense black hole of anger and disbelief. He let go of David’s hand. His eyes filled with rage as he glared at his ex. 

"Olivia…" he said, his voice beginning to shake with accusation. The unbelievable truth began forming in his brain. When Olivia had left him, she’d stolen away his unborn son with her and hidden him away all this time. He'd been wrong.

The truth was far worse than anything he had ever possibly imagined. 

"Ian, take David downstairs. Now, please," she said, her own voice beginning to shake. 

 A conglomerate of instinctual impulses rose as he watched Ian lead David away. He wanted to grab the boy from this unknown person, protect him from some unseen danger. That protectiveness held his anger in check until David was well out of sight. Not caring the hallway was full of police or the fact that he'd never acted violently towards a woman in his life, Fish grabbed Olivia by the arm and flung her into the wall. 

"Who's his father, Livie?!” he asked through tightly clenched teeth. 

"Joe…" she said, meekly. 

He slammed his fist into the wall right next to her head. The drywall cracked. _"WHO, OLIVIA?!”_

One of the PC's grabbed Fish and pulled him away from her. He stood between the two of them. He continued to shove Fish, keeping him away from Olivia who looked positively terrified.

"Oi! Back off!" the PC shouted.

"Olivia! Did you do this? Answer me, Olivia!" Fish snapped.

"Oi! I said back off!"

The PC shoved Fish again, his baton in hand. Out of the corner of his eye, Fish saw Jack and Miranda moving towards them to intervene.

On the rare occasions Fish had to use Torchwood's authority, he generally felt badly waving his credentials about, but not this time, and this time it wasn't even official. He shoved the PC aside and ordered, "Torchwood. You back off!" 

"I don't give a fuck who you are, mun, I won't have your roughing up no one!" the PC snapped back. 

He grabbed Olivia by the arm and dragged her back towards the office. He practically flung her inside. After slamming the door, he locked it behind them. Livid, he was dimly aware of Jack's muted voice arguing with the PC.

The blood was pounding in his ears and all he saw was red. With white hot fury, he rounded on Olivia. 

"What the fuck, Olivia?!" he shouted. 

"Joe…" Olivia said softly. 

"You bitch!" He reached back, as if to strike her, and she let out a terrified squeak. She shrank backwards, wide eyed. Fish couldn't believe what he'd nearly done. He took several deep breaths, clenching and unclenching his fists. Then he took a few more. 

"You do not get to speak unless you’re answering my questions!" he said. His voice dropped the temperature in the room several degrees. Even though he knew the answer, he asked anyway. "Is he mine, Olivia?”

He half wanted her to deny it. 

"Joe…" 

"NO!" he barked. There was so much whip in his voice, Olivia actually jumped and let out another squeak. "How fucking thick do you think I am? He said he was ten!” 

"Joe…" 

"-I know basic maths!-"

"Joe, you don't understand…" she tried again.

"-Nine months before he was born-"

"Joe…" 

"-you and I were still together-"

"Joe!"

"-so unless you cheated on me less than a month before our wedding-"

"I WASN’T GOING TO KEEP HIM!" Olivia bellowed and then turned away, ashamed. Tears were in her eyes when she turned back around. She dropped her voice but it was still trembling, "I wasn't going to keep him! You'd always talked about how the world was overpopulated and how it wasn't going to get any better with people having more children and how we needed to be part of the solution not the problem and a million other reasons why we were never going to ever have children-"

"Reasons you bloody agreed with!" Fish shouted back over her. 

"-and yes, I agreed with you! I can barely keep myself in order let alone a whole other person! When that test was positive, I panicked, okay! I was hormonal and I was losing it! I called off the wedding because I fucking panicked!" Her legs gave way and she sank to the floor, and began to cry. She wrapped her arms around her chest and started rocking back and forth. She continued through the tears, "I was sitting at that clinic… They called my name and I couldn't do it… I couldn't... I told myself every day that I'd tell you… I'd make it right… Every day there was another excuse… then the next day… the next… the next… then there he was… I was overwhelmed… the nappies… the colic… the post-partum depression… I had to move back in with my parents… I couldn’t take care of him… it all went by so fast… it got harder and harder… I couldn't figure… figure out what to say… to say to you…" 

Olivia's voice trailed off as she started to sob harder and harder. "Everyday… I'd think of… how you'd be so proud… I couldn't… I didn't know what to say… how… I couldn't figure out how…" 

He just stared down at her while she sobbed. "You kept my son from me?! How could you?!" 

She hiccuped softly. "I didn't want to keep him from you! I never did! It just got away from me! I didn’t know how to tell you! I didn’t know what to say!” 

Fish bellowed, “HE’S TEN! NEARLY ELEVEN! TEN FUCKING YEARS, LIVIE!”

He stepped backwards and took a few shaky breaths. "What have you told him?"

"Nothing. I could never figure out what to say to him either,” Olivia said, wiping her eyes and nose.

"You're going to tell him the truth, Livie," Fish said, flatly.

Olivia hiccuped. "We can work… something out too… visitation." 

For Fish, the decision was instantaneous. He snapped, “You’re damned fucking right we will and if you think I won't drag you into court for it, you have another fucking thing coming, Olivia! You've kept him from me his whole fucking life and you are not going to keep me away from him one fucking second longer!" He leaned over her, and continued to shout at her angrily. "All those memories! You’ve stolen them! The day he was born! His first words… his first steps… every birthday… every holiday… You unbelievable..."  

David was his. He started to gasp, leaning backwards against the office door. David was a piece of him and Fish had missed his entire life. He broke off, his own grief overwhelming him. He wiped away the angry tears. _The same city. I’ve been in the same city as him for most his fucking life and I didn’t know!_

Olivia sat there. Her voice shaking, she said, "What are you going to do, Joe?" 

He shook his head. His own tears beginning to fall. "That depends on you." He pushed off the door and stood up. He walked over to the desk and picked up the box of tissues. He took a few from the box and wiped his face then tossed the box at Olivia. It hit her in the arm and fell to the floor. "We can do this easy. Or we can do this hard." 

"We can't just turn David's life upside down!” Olivia wailed. 

He took a quick step forward and leaned over her. "Don't you dare use that as an excuse! Let me tell you how many different fucking kinds of wrong you are if you think I'm walking away from him!" 

Fish continued glaring at her even though she wouldn't meet his eye. He slammed his hand down on the desk and Olivia jumped. He shouted, thunderously, "Do you think I'm fucking bluffing, Livie?!” 

He counted to ten in his head slowly. 

"Fine. We do this the hard way," Fish said, his voice like ice. 

"I'll tell him!" Olivia blurted.

"You fucking better!" Fish snapped. "And I'm not going to give you another ten fucking years. You tell him or the next time you hear from me it'll be through a solicitor. Do we have an understanding?"

Olivia didn't even speak. She just buried her face in her hands sobbing as she nodded. Fish flung the door to the office open, narrowly missing Jack who was keeping the PC who'd come to Olivia's rescue at bay. Fish stepped into the hallway. The concerned PC pushed Jack aside and darted into the office. Everyone was staring at him and for once, he wasn't the least bit embarrassed. Jack and Miranda were staring at him too. He looked around with challenge in his eyes, daring someone to say something to him, even Jack or Miranda. He was itching for it. No one said anything and Fish stormed away, shoving as he went.

When he got to his car, he remembered Jack had the keys. He kicked the tire in frustration. He couldn’t even get into his own fucking car. Angry, he waited. He must have looked completely mental. Several times, he impatiently stormed away from the car, fully intent on walking back to the Hub, only to stomp his way back when he remembered how long of a walk it was. He’d only been waiting for a few minutes, but it felt like hours. He didn’t look at either immortal as they drove back. The moment the car was in the Hub garage, Fish got out and stomped his way into the main Hub.

He immediately set to work on the mobile without so much as glancing at anyone. He completely bit Hart’s head off when the former Time Agent sat down next to him at their shared worktable. In an act of self-preservation, Hart moved to his workstation. If Fish hadn't been so angry, he would’ve noticed the cautious glances and subtlehead shakes passing between his colleagues. It didn’t take him long to download all the information off of the mobile. What took some time was sifting through every single piece of information on it with the computer system’s help.

Since whatever was on the mobile had driven several people completely stark raving mad, Fish wasn’t about to comb through the information himself. Instead, he uploaded everything to the computer system and was processing everything in raw form. It was tedious, but kept him occupied.

When the team ordered lunch, they left him to himself. They did the same at dinner. The only intrusion was Ianto who kept a careful eye on Fish’s coffee mug. Whenever it became cold or empty, Ianto would replace it as unobtrusively as possible. If Fish had noticed, he would’ve been grateful.

The funniest bit, if you could call any part of this situation funny, was how productive it had made him. Just after dinner, Fish had finished his analysis of the mobile, gotten the medical scanner working, and identified four items in the backlog. The only interruptions were calls of nature.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fish saw Jack walk past his desk. The immortal man had done so throughout the day, checking on him. What Fish wished would stop was the incessant buzzing of his mobile. Since moving into the Hub a week ago, he'd gotten used to ignoring the answer phone and text notifications, but each time his mobile went off was like a knife in Fish's ears.

_Go away. Go away. Go away. Go away._

A small hand lightly rest on his shoulder. "Fish-"

"I'll go home in a bit, Evie. I think I’m onto something here,” Fish said, carefully soldering a connection. He'd had his nose buried in this piece of tech all evening. He suspected it was another medical device-a tissue regenerator similar to the finicky one they had currently. _Leave me alone. Leave me alone._

“Joe…”

"Don't. Evie. Just don't," he said, a white knuckle grip on his tools. "I can't. Not yet. This is what I understand. This is what makes sense to me right now."

Miranda squeezed his shoulder and left him in peace, heading down into the autopsy bay just as Alicia arrived for the night shift. The immortal woman had a brief, quiet conversation with the young woman who picked up her laptop and went over to the sofa, some sort of television program playing softly. 

Fish continued to tinker with the tech in front of him. It had just gone midnight when his head fell forward, nearly face-planting into the table. He was emotionally drained and he hadn't done anything but distract himself.

When he stood up, he rubbed at his face. What he really wanted was some of Henry's aged scotch, but the last thing he wanted to do was go back to the loft to another fucking domestic disaster. Instead, he turned towards Jack's office and let himself in. He sat down at his boss's desk and opened the bottom drawer, spying the mostly empty bottle. Knowing it was a monumental display of poor judgement, he unscrewed the cap and knocked back what was left of the bottle. On his empty stomach, the liquor hit him immediately.

He staggered out from behind the desk, stumbled, and fell. For a brief moment, his alcohol fogged brain worried about alcohol poisoning. He dragged himself over to Jack's sofa and dropped onto it. Dimly, he was aware of someone shaking him and calling his name.

"Joe! Please! Joe!"

He cracked open one of his eyes. His head was pounding. "Gerrof..."

"Joe! You need to sit up! Wake up!" Alicia shook him violently.

"All right... all right," Fish croaked. He sat up and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"You scared the shit out of me!" she said, shaking her head. She slapped his arm, hard. "I've been trying to wake you for a full five minutes now!"

"Sorry," Fish said.

She held out a glass of water. "Drink that whole thing."

As Fish obediently sipped the water, she put her hand on his shoulder. "Joe? Are you okay? Miranda said to not bother you, but-"

Fish shook his head. He'd never seen Alicia like this, but then again she'd never seen him like this either. "I'm fine."

"You are so full of shit, Joe. You nearly gave yourself fucking alcohol poisoning. I almost went and got Miranda." She sat down next to him on the sofa. "Listen, I know what's happening between you and Henry isn't any of my business, but I'm worried about you. We're all worried about you..."

Alicia trailed off as the rift alert sounded. "Shit..." she muttered. Then resumed, "When I'm done taking care of this with Miranda, we're going to talk."

Knowing it was the fastest way to get Alicia to leave him the fuck alone, Fish said, "Thanks, Alicia. Don't... don't tell Evie, okay?"

"Our secret." She squeezed his shoulder and said, "I'll be back soon."

With that, she was gone and Fish was relieved. Even though he was still mostly pissed, he staggered to his workstation and sat down. He brought up documents and hacked into private records. He used every single power at his disposal to get a complete picture of Olivia’s deception. On the second of February in the year 2006, Olivia Marie Porter had given birth to a healthy baby boy, weighing eight pounds, fifteen ounces and measuring twenty three inches long. She'd named him David Joseph Porter and listed no father.

Tears welled up in Fish's eyes. _His middle name is Joseph…_ He brought up more records and financial information. Olivia had quit her job as a nurse and moved back in with her parents in Swansea, just as she’d said. When David entered nursery, she'd gone back to her nursing career at a local hospital and moved into a flat of her own. She'd moved to Cardiff after she'd married Ian Dumont, a radiologist. Fish saw no sign that Olivia had known Ian when he and Olivia had been together. He resisted looking into Olivia's husband, turning instead to David.

He looked at David's medical and education records first, seeing he was a healthy young boy, if not a bit short for his age. _Just like I was…_ In this modern era of social networking, some parent somewhere had to have posted a picture of a football game or birthday party. It didn’t take Fish long to find one. There David was, playing and gleefully kicking the ball to another child. Tears ran down his face as he stared at the picture. _I've missed his whole life…_

Fish had never wanted children. He’d had plenty of reasons. He hadn't wanted to add another person to an already overpopulated world. He'd enjoyed being able to do what he wanted with his time, when he wanted to do it. There were other reasons of course, and they all sounded perfectly reasonable, but truthfully, fatherhood terrified Fish. The crushing weight of being completely responsible for another human being’s entire development was stifling. His own childhood had been happy and almost idyllic. Fish looked up to his parents and loved them with his whole being. When life had taken them away from him, it had sent Fish's world crashing down around him. He couldn't imagine meaning so much to someone else or causing that much pain when his time came.

Now he couldn’t believe how much David meant to him and he didn’t even know him. The unconditional love was unlike anything Fish had ever experienced outside of his own love for his parents, but even that paled in comparison. The moment Fish had seen David's face, he'd had no doubt the boy was his. A swell of paternal feelings rose up in him. He'd wanted to reach out, gather the boy up and hold him for the rest of his life. The profound sense of loss returned. With a cry of rage, he swept everything off of his desk. The keyboard smashed, keys popping off and flying. Random office supplies scattered everywhere. How could Olivia do this to him? How could she hide his son from him? What had he ever done? He'd never mistreated her! He'd known nothing! He started angrily kicking his paper clip dispenser, sending the metal pieces flying.

“Fish?” Ianto asked softly. He was barefoot, wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms and a white t-shirt that was a little big for him, and carrying his side arm. 

The ruckus of his things hitting the floor must have woken the couple asleep below. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jack standing at the top of the north stairs, his Webley was in his hand, but lowered. There was a concerned look in the Captain’s face. Ianto was approaching him carefully. He took in the mess and asked, cautiously, “Joe? You all right?"

Fish looked around at the mess he’d created. The weight of the past day came crashing down on him. He hugged his chest. He shook his head and started to cry. Ianto rushed over to him, and put his arms around him. Embarrassed, Fish brought his emotions under control, stifling his sobs. He saw Ianto staring at David’s picture on his ruined monitor.

Ianto asked softly, “You want me to ring Henry?”

Fish shook his head. He wiped at his nose with his sleeve. His voice still shook. “I'm still not talking to him. What the fuck do I do, Ianto?"

Ianto released him and stood, pulling over chairs for both of them. Once seated, he turned to Fish and said, “Mate, I know you and Henry are having problems, and I get it, I do, but I think you need to put it aside for a now. You have to talk to him. This is going to affect both of you. If you want to be a part of his life, she could fight you. You're talking courts and solicitors."

"I know," Fish interrupted. He yanked some tissues out of the box on Ianto’s desk, then sat heavily in the seat opposite his friend. After blowing his nose, and wiping his face, he leaned forward and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “You know, ten years ago, I would've said Livie wouldn't do something like that. But now…" He scrubbed at his face, remembering his violent reaction. “I lost it back at the hospital… made a scene…”

“You’ve a right to be angry. If Lisa’d done something like this to me?” He shook his head. “I would’ve lost it too.”

Fish put his hands on the edge of his desk and leaned over. “Fuck I don’t even know where to fucking start.”

“It won’t matter,” Ianto reassured. “He’s a good bloke, Fish. It won't matter what's going on. He'll be there for you."

Fish closed his eyes and said, "I gave him an ultimatum. Stop punishing me for being mortal..." 

"Or you'll leave him," Ianto finished. "Fuck it, Joe. You can't do this alone." 

“It’s all so unreal to me. I can’t believe any of it,” Fish said. Standing up, he leaned over his monitor. He picked it up and sat it on his desk, not taking his eyes off David’s picture the entire time. “I…”

He broke off when the alarm began to sound. He closed his eyes, dread and exhaustion wafting over him like a thick fog. 

Ianto turned in his chair and began tapping on Gwen’s computer. He brought up the alert.

“Police have two teenage girls in custody,” he said, squinting at the display. His eyes widened. “One bludgeoned their parents to death and the other one is catatonic.”

Fish let out an involuntary groan. The idea of mustering up the mental wherewithal to handle this situation was already exhausting him. He heard the sound of Jack’s footsteps on the stairs. "Alicia and Evie are already out on an artefact retrieval."

Ianto said, “Jack and I have it. We can get Ben too." 

Fish pointed and said, "Ben doesn't coordinate on his own yet, Ianto."

"You've been drinking. I can ring Gwen and John. You don’t have to-”

“I’m fine,” Fish snapped. _Get your shite together, Fischer. You are not making him ring a pregnant woman in the middle of the night because you’re a sodding mess._ He started picking up the strewn office supplies and putting them back on his desk, haphazardly. Most of what he put back rolled off again.

“Joe, stop,” Ianto replied. He grabbed Fish’s arm. 

Jack's voice boomed. "You're drunk, Fish. Do as Ianto says and go home. Not downstairs. Home. That's an order. You walk, don't drive." The Torchwood Captain turned on his heel and went back down the stairs. 

Fish let put the cup of pens onto his desk heavily and it tipped, the pens ending up back on the floor. He planted his hands on the desk, he hunched, defeated.

“Go on home,” Ianto said, gently. “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”

The alcohol was still fogging his brain. He could get someone killed. With a resigned nod, he walked towards the Tourist Office exit. 

* * *

Ianto and Jack watched on the security camera as Fish walked home. Though Ianto had offered to drive Fish to the loft, Fish had refused. 

Jack helped Ianto tidy up enough so the floor was clear. "You're not going to ring Gwen are you?"

It had been a while since Jack had been on the receiving end of The Frown. Sheepish, Jack said, "Just checking."

"I'm a little insulted you think I'd ring a pregnant woman in the middle of the night."

Ianto added one of his eye rolls to The Frown. He walked back downstairs to the storage rooms turned flat to get dressed. 

“I don’t think we need to bother the others at all," Ianto said. He pulled Jack's borrowed t-shirt over his head and dropped it into the hamper. "We need to start labeling our t-shirts."

"I like it when you wear my clothes," Jack said. 

"And I like wearing them, but your t-shirts are too big for me and I don't like how they feel under my dress shirts."

"I can have Will stitch something onto them," Jack said. He held out a shirt and tie for his husband. 

“If whatever this is causing this spreads, we could have a serious problem.” Ianto sighed. "You know how fast the newest viral videos move across the Internet. It could become global." 

"We don't know what's causing it yet. Fish submitted a preliminary report. He doesn't think whatever it is still on that phone." Jack sat down on the bench and began pulling on his trousers. 

"That doesn't give us any leads," Ianto said then sighed. He sank down next to Jack, his shirt half buttoned. "I should’ve told him.”

Jack shook his head. “We’ve talked about this, Yan."

“Doesn’t mean I still don't feel like a complete shit, Jack.”

“Do you really think it would’ve softened the blow for him?” Jack asked. 

"He was completely blindsided," Ianto said. He ran his fingers through his hair. 

Jack jerked his finger over his shoulder. “Nothing prepares you for something like that, Ianto. Nothing.”

Once they were dressed, they walked upstairs together. When they approached the SUV, Jack handed the keys over to Ianto. “Kids change everything.”

As they drove towards Newport, the SUV was silent. It was extremely rare that Jack spoke about his experiences as a father and Ianto never asked, knowing the subject was an extremely difficult one for his husband. Jack hadn't been there for a lot of his daughter's life. Even though it was through no fault of his own, there was a lot of guilt there. Jack and Alice had been repairing their relationship, slowly. Ianto suspected Tom's influence was the reason Alice's willingness to keep Jack in her life had grown. They were both happy the two of them had reconciled and were back together. 

The whole subject of children and family was a sore point for Ianto too, since he was incapable of fathering children. Unasked questions, and strange, impossible hypothetical situations turned in Ianto’s head as he drove. Jack was just as pensive, staring out his window insilence. Finally, Ianto couldn't stop the question that crept out of his mouth. “Would you do it again?”

The silence stretched for so long Ianto suspected Jack wouldn't answer the question and pretend Ianto had never asked it. But Ianto felt Jack's hand on his own. Jack's fingers nudged their way in between Ianto's and he said, in a quiet voice, "Yeah, I think I would.”

Ianto’s heart swelled. He brought their joined hands to his lips, kissing Jack’s hand. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Ianto.” 

When they arrived at the scene, it was well before dawn. They were met with somber faces. To Ianto’s surprise, the window of the police car was bloody. He stood there for a moment, staring at it. 

“One of ‘em started crackin’ her skull against the glass,” one ofthe PCs said. 

“Where are they now?” asked Ianto.

The PC indicated the ambulance. “Out cold.” He jerked his head at thehouse. “Ain’t pretty in there. One o’the girls gouged her own eyes out with a pair of shears.” 

“Lovely,” Ianto said with a grimace. He reached into his pocket for his credentials. “I’m-”

“Torchwood, I know,” the PC said. He spat on the ground. “Go on in if you like.” 

With a tight smile, Ianto walked into the house, carefully following the plastic. He stopped at the top of the stairs, obtaining a pair of shoe covers and gloves from one of the technicians. Jack was already down the hallway. Ianto could hear him.

“Are the bodies still in place?” Ianto asked.

The young girl shook her head. “Coroner’s got ‘em.”

Ianto heard her mutter as he walked away, “Bloody Torchwood.”

Their trips to Newport weren’t frequent and the local police here weren’t as used to them as those in Cardiff. When Ianto poked his head into one of the girl’s rooms, he saw the bloody pair of shears on the floor with a plastic number next to it. He began collecting the electronics-the laptop, the iPad and iPhone.

“Oi!” a voice came from behind him.

Ianto lifted his credentials, without looking up, and said, “Torchwood.”

“You’re takin’ all our evidence!” the woman shouted.

“Torchwood,” Ianto repeated. He turned around and gave the detective inspector a firm look. “And I’ll have any other electronic devices that belong to the family.”

“I don’t give a damn who the fuck you are. It’s evidence. Our evidence,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Not anymore it’s not,” Jack said, from behind her. He held out his mobile to her. “Your superintendent, Detective Inspector.”

She took the mobile and immediately began arguing her case. After a few moments and several expletives, she returned with the bagged items Ianto had originally requested. “Take ‘em and get the fuck out of my crime scene.”

Jack took them from her, quickly made sure everything was there, then nodded at Ianto. “We’re gone.”

Ianto stepped out of the room. As she passed him, she said, “I don’t have a shit’s hope of seeing those again, do I?”

“If they’re not useful to us, we’ll return them,” Ianto said, trying to maintain his polite professionalism.

“You’re handicapping my case, taking that, you are. How the fuck do you sleep at night?” she asked.

Jack called up from the stairs. “In the arms of a sexy Welshman. Let’s go, Ianto.”

With a polite smile, Ianto followed Jack outside after handing off his shoe covers. The sun was fully up now. He put the electronics into a containment box and then got behind the wheel of the SUV again.

“Let’s get these back so John can take a look at them,” Jack said.

Halfway back to Cardiff, Ianto asked, “Do you think we’ve time to stop at the bake shop?” 

“I don’t see why not. I think-” He stopped speaking as his mobile rang. “Rhys.” 

“Gwen probably under the weather,” Ianto said. The former PC's husband often rang when Gwen wasn't well. 

Jack nodded. No one begrudged her the time. She was growing another human being, after all. It was hard work. Jack connected the call. He said, brightly, “Morning, Rhys! Gwen under the weather?… Woah, wait, slow down… I’m so sorry, Rhys… When?… How is she? How are you?… No, don’t you dare worry about us… No, you tell her to take whatever time she needs. I mean it. A few months. However long she needs… Listen, you two need anything, and I mean anything, you ring… No... How can you say that? Of course we understand she's not up to visitors… We love you both… Yeah… Yeah… Bye, Rhys. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Once the call disconnected, Jack dropped the phone in his lap. “Gwen lost the baby.” 

Ianto put his signal on and pulled off the road. He leaned back and shook his head, tears welling. This was Gwen’s fourth miscarriage. Gwen and Rhys had started the in-vitro fertilization process and their first embryo implantation had been a success, but given their history of miscarriage, the couple had been extremely reluctant to celebrate. Two weeks ago, Gwen had reached the halfway mark and was visibly relieved. And now...

"Do they know what happened?" 

“When she went to her regular appointment after that double alert, Rhys said there was no heartbeat. Rhys said the doctors think it was chromosomal. He apologised for not calling sooner, but they’re both a mess.”

“Bollocks to that. Nothing to apologise for.” Ianto wiped at his eyes. “I’ll have the food sent again.”

Jack wiped at his own tears. He reached out for Ianto’s hand and gripped it tightly. “We’ll visit them, as soon as they’re up to it.” 

“They’ve been trying so hard for this baby, Jack. Every time they relax and start to look forward to it, something goes wrong." Frustrated, Ianto banged the heel of his hand against the wheel. "You know, when Rhiannon was pregnant with Micah, some daft woman leaned over and told her, ‘You know you can still get all the way to the end and not end up with a baby.’ Rhiannon told her off, she did. Told her what a cruel thing it was to say… but she was right, wasn’t she? So fucking unfair. I wish there was something more we could do to help them.”

“I wish there was too,” Jack said. He sighed and then his brow crinkled as the expression on his face became less sad and more pensive.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the middle of the night when Fish crept into the loft. To his surprise, Henry wasn't home. Though his intention had been to talk to his husband, he was glad the loft was deserted. Instead searching for Henry, Fish decided he needed to take care of himself first. The day had been nothing but one bad coping mechanism after another and that wasn't like him.

The first order of business was rest, but that was easier said than done. After a few hours of restless tossing and turning that could hardly be called sleep, Fish got out of bed and scrubbed at his face. With his stomach in knots and queasy from sleep deprivation, Fish loathed the idea of food.

Instead, he changed into his running clothes and took to the streets in a random direction. He continued to run, his mind numb and thoughtless. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but the first light of dawn was beginning to break across the sky, and if the dull throb in his knee was any indicator, it had been a while.

Eventually, Fish obeyed the distant part of his mind that screamed about his hydration and his blood sugar. He slowed to a walk and popped into a corner shop, purchasing a bottle of water and a protein bar. Mindful he’d had nothing but booze and coffee in his stomach for more than twenty four hours, he sipped the water slowly and nibbled at the protein bar. He looked up at the street signs, identifying his location. He let out a bit of a groan. He was far from the loft. He turned towards home, walking not running, limping a bit from his throbbing knee.

He went into another shop, bought another, larger bottle of water and another protein bar. He continued to walk towards home as he slowly ate and drank. He shivered, his running clothes not enough to protect him from the chilly morning air. The colder he got, the more his knee throbbed and the more he thought about summoning a taxi, but he kept walking. There was something soothing about the pain.

When he arrived back at the loft, there was still no Henry. There had been quite a few rows over the years. One or two of them had been bad enough they'd taken some space from each other. It was Fish's habit to sleep at the Hub, and it was Henry's habit to sleep at his studio. He assumed that was where Henry was now.

Fish tossed his sweaty clothes into the hamper and stepped into the shower. Running was usually meditative for him, a way for him to calm his mind and organise his thoughts, but this run had done neither. All he’d accomplished was aggravating his knee and dispelling some restless energy.

Once he was under the hot spray, he sighed. The questions swirled in his mind. He couldn’t figure out how this had happened. Well, he knew how it had happened.

The sudden memory of Olivia beneath him, her legs around his hips, filled his mind. He could hear her low cries and feel her fingers digging into his back. 

He and Olivia hadn't been celibate in their relationship, but as responsible, sexually active adults, they’d taken all the steps for proper birth control. At first, that had meant condoms. Once their relationship became serious and monogamous, they’d gotten all the proper tests done, and Olivia had started oral contraceptives. Once he’d proposed and they'd firmly agreed to remain childless, Fish had sought a more permanent solution, but had been unable to find a doctor who'd perform a vasectomy on a childless man of Fish's age. Had the marriage proposal been where everything had started to go wrong? Had wedding planning strained Olivia so much she'd forgotten to take her pills? Or had the pills themselves just not worked? It was rare, but it happened. There was no way Olivia would have done this on purpose, would she?

_It doesn’t matter…_

He sighed and leaned against the tile wall, then made the water hotter. Instead of focusing on what had caused David’s unintentional conception, his mind turned to their aborted wedding. With another piece of the puzzle, Fish resumed turning the whole thing over in his head in a way he hadn't done in years. He was half way to completely pissed when she’d walked into his stag night. He only remembered bits and pieces of what she’d said. _It’s not you, it’s me…_ All he could see was her tear streaked face. Her words ran together, in between sobs, while his mates, who were just as close to completely pissed as he was, looked on with pity and embarrassment. _I love you, Joe… I do… I’m just not in love with you…_ The horrific memory played over and over again in his mind like some sort of twisted farce. He couldn’t shake it. It hadn’t made sense to him then, and now that he knew all the facts, it made even less sense. They'd always had excellent communication in their relationship. They'd talked about everything, sometimes too much. He'd never given Olivia a reason to think he'd go nuclear over something like this. What had she thought he'd do? Abandon his child and the woman he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with? If she had just fucking talked to him...

He sighed as the pain of it all came rushing back. He’d barely been aware of what was going on at the time with the mind numbing shock of it all. He vaguely remembered his sister, Anna, ringing every wedding vendor, canceling flowers and musicians and their honeymoon. The water in the shower started to run cold, but Fish hadn’t noticed. All he could hear was his sister’s shrill voice and deafening volume in his head, _Joey, you will eat this food even if I have to shove every last bite down your fucking throat!_

He shivered, the water stone cold. He shut it off and stepped out, his sister’s voice still ringing in his head. After drying off and getting dressed, he limped into the kitchen to find something to eat. As he cooked himself something, he continued to turn over the questions and possibilities in his head. Once his bland scrambled egg and toast were eaten, he was no closer to understanding any of it. He needed to talk to someone. He was about to ring his sister, when he thought better of it. Anna would fly up from Perth and murder Olivia with her bare hands.

So he did what he should've done the minute this whole mess had started. He picked up his mobile and dialed Henry's number. Given how often Henry rang him or sent him a text, Fish knew he would answer.

The phone had barely rang once when Henry's voice said, hopeful and surprised, "Joe?"

The emotion he'd been suppressing began bubbling up. He couldn't keep his voice steady when he said, "Hi, Henry." He cleared his throat. "Could you come home? I need you."

"I'll be there shortly." Henry rang off without even waiting for Fish to reply.

Fish felt like a needy girl, sitting on his sofa crying, hugging a throw pillow, waiting for his man to come home, but he didn't care. He was so relieved when he heard Henry's keys in the door, he cried harder. The moment Henry was through the door, he was on the sofa next to him, drawing him into his arms. Fish buried his face in Henry's neck, breathing in the cologne as he sobbed. It took a while to compose himself. He sat back and wiped at his eyes, accepting Henry's handkerchief, he blew his nose. "Thank you for coming."

"Of course, Joe," Henry said. He pushed the hair away from Fish's forehead. "Can you tell me what's the matter?"

He tucked his legs under himself and blew his nose again. Seeing Henry was in his work clothes, he said, "Do you want to change first?"

"If you're all right for a minute?" 

Fish nodded and Henry swiftly rose to change his clothing. There was paint on his husband's hands. He must've caught him mid-brush stroke. When Henry returned, wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a faded t-shirt, he went to the liquor cabinet. "Would you like a drink, Joe?" 

"Liquor's the last thing I should have," Fish said, sighing. 

Henry poured them both a glass of water and then sat back down on the sofa. He asked, alarmed, "Has something happened to one of the team?" 

"No," he said, quickly, to put Henry's mind at ease. "Something else."

"What is it, Joe?" 

Fish swallowed and said, "I know we've got this... this problem right now... but I'm hoping we can put it aside for a little while."

"Something else has arisen," Henry said, flatly.

Fish closed his eyes and nodded. "I went to University Hospital with Jack and Miranda for an alert and ran into Olivia."

Henry looked relieved for a moment. He reached out for his hand, squeezing. "I take it things did not go well?"

Fish shook his head. He picked up his mobile phone from the coffee table and brought up the picture of David. He passed the device to Henry. At first, Henry’s face was full of confusion, but it slowly vanished and the realisation dawned on him.

“My God!" Henry gasped. He stared wide eyed and open mouthed at the picture. His eyes rapidly flicking from it and back up to Fish's face. "Is this…"

"He's mine.... my son..." Fish said. His stomach flipped back and forth to finally say it aloud. _Holy fucking Christ, I'm someone's father..._ Fish resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. 

Henry brought his hand up over his own mouth. Tears started to collect in his eyes. "An angel… His name?"

"David Joseph Porter," Fish said, still smiling.

“Named for you?” Henry asked.

Fish doubted it was why Olivia had chosen the name. “The middle name maybe. Olivia’s father was a drunk and wasn't in the picture much. Her Mom's brother, David, was a big part of her life. He died when she was just fifteen in an RTA-drunk driver. It’s one of the things that brought us together… we both lost fathers to RTA’s and booze.”

The wonder in Henry's eyes began to change slowly to disbelief and then anger. "How could she hide such a treasure from you?"

“I’ve asked myself the same fucking thing since yesterday.” He took a gulp of water. “Livie and I’d agreed to never have kids. She said she panicked when she found out she was pregnant." 

"This is why she called off your wedding?" Henry asked, appalled. "How absurd!"

Fish nodded. "It doesn't make any sense to me either, Henry. I mean, for fuck's sake, she should've said something to me."

"This is absolutely unconscionable." 

He shared his husband's outrage. "It made even less sense when she said she'd... she'd planned on terminating the pregnancy."

Revulsion flickered across Henry's face. His husband was vehemently anti-abortion. He shook his head. "That is madness. If she didn't want the child, why leave you?"  

"I have no idea. She ended up not going through with it. She said she had a rough go of it after David was born with postpartum depression. Then she said the longer she waited to tell me, the harder it got-"

"-and the more she avoided the situation," Henry said, shaking his head. 

"Exactly," Fish replied. He took another few sips. "It was one of her greatest faults. She would constantly ignore things, hoping they'd just go away."

"What do you want to happen now, Joe?" Henry asked. "Will Olivia want some sort of support for the boy? Would she fight your parental rights?"

Fish shrugged. "Olivia hasn't asked for so much as a penny... yet." He rubbed at his forehead. This was already an unholy shitstorm. Adding money into it wouldn't make it any less complicated. "We're going to work something out with visitation. I'm hoping without the courts. As for support, she hasn't asked and I haven't offered yet, but that will probably be a part of it," Fish said. "I know this isn't what you signed up for, Henry."

"You knew nothing of David until now, Joe. You've willingly accepted my son into our lives," Henry pointed out.

"It's not the same thing, Henry. Tom's a grown man. I'm not his step-father, I'm his friend," Fish insisted. "David's a ten year old boy."

"We can easily redecorate the guest room for David's tastes," Henry insisted. "I'm certain Jack and Ianto will be understanding if you wish to leave Torchwood. They have offered in the past-" 

His heckles raised immediately. "Henry-"

"Joe, you're a father now!" Henry cried. "You cannot think only of yourself!" 

"Is that what you think I'm..." Fish trailed off, then took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then did it again. "Henry, I need us to set that argument aside for now. I cannot deal with all this at the same time. Please. We can fight about it later, but right now, I need you. I need us-the us that loves each other, not the us that's having the same unresolved fight. Again."

Henry closed his eyes and nodded. He also took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, then asked, "Do believe your ex would have an issue with us? Our relationship is causing some problem-"

"No, Livie doesn’t know about us yet,” Fish said. _And isn’t that going to be a fun conversation?_ "I just…" He hesitated. What he was about to say would be poking at an issue Fish just said he didn't want to visit. "I don't want to give you one more person to lose."

Henry took Fish's hands in his. "I love you, Joe. I will always love you. I know we have had our disagreements of late regarding-" Henry cleared his throat, "but to know there will be some piece of you that I may still treasure after... It is a gift. I will watch over your son for as long as I am able. On my head, I swear it to you."

"I love you, Henry," Fish said. He gripped Henry's hands harder. “I need you. I’m scared. I don't know what to do."

"I meant what I said to you once, Joe. You'll make a wonderful father," Henry insisted. "You have a good heart, follow it."

Fish pulled Henry towards him and asked, "Is it all right if I come home?"

"Of course, Joe."

Curling into Henry's arms, Fish closed his eyes, listening to the comforting beat of his husband's heart. "I love you, Henry."

"I love you too, Joe," he replied.

After the emotional rollercoaster, Fish fell asleep in Henry's arms, drained and exhausted. It wasn't his intention, but it was rest he needed. When he woke, he found himself on the sofa, under Henry's favorite throw. Henry had cooked him some food and they spent lunch talking. Under Henry's advice, Fish rang Warren Lanning, Miranda's solicitor, and discussed his options. While Lanning handled mostly estate matters, he had recently gone through a divorce and had done his research regarding custody and visitation. That rabbit hole was enough to make Fish's head spin. 

Armed with the correct information, Fish wanted to ring Olivia immediately, but Henry talked him down. This bombshell had hit Olivia the same as it had hit him, though not in quite the same way. Henry convinced him that though Olivia had had years to do the right thing, she still needed some time to adjust. So, Fish sent a text to his ex saying he would give her two days to sort things before contacting her again. Now, he needed to begin the special sort of torture known as waiting.

Just as Henry was fixing them some tea, his mobile phone began to ring. It was an apologetic Jack. The Torchwood Captain made it clear it was not an order to come in, just a polite inquiry of whether or not he was able to, and he should feel under no obligation. To Fish's surprise, Henry suggested he go as a distraction instead of sitting around the loft.

When Fish arrived at the Hub, Jack led him back into his office. Fish didn’t want to have this conversation with anyone. It had been hard enough having it with Henry. The fact that Jack stepped around the desk and leaned against the edge told Fish the coming conversation wasn’t professional. He braced himself for the questions.

Jack drew in a deep, heavy sigh and said, “Gwen and Rhys lost the baby.”

Fish’s heart sank and a cold lump formed in his throat as the size of his troubles shrank to nothing. “What happened?”

“They don’t know. They went for a routine check and there was no heartbeat. They think it was something chromosomal. She’s in hospital, recovering from the procedures. She’s going to be fine…” Jack replied and then added, sadly, “physically…”

Fish shook his head and rubbed the tears from his eyes. Just knowing David existed had completely altered his perspective. He had felt terrible for them before, now he didn't know how Gwen and Rhys were still sane. 

“Gwen’s going to be taking some time. I know you’ve got your own problems right now-”

“I’m fine, Jack,” Fish insisted. He started to rise out of the chair. He’d arrived at the subject he didn’t want to discuss.

“Woah, hey, slow down,” Jack said, holding up his hand. He leaned forward, taking Fish arm and guiding him back down to the chair. “Look, Fish, I’m not going to pry. I can tell you don't want to talk about it. What I am going to do is remind you that Will and I handled this place, alone, for nearly five years. You're only here two days a week. You don't have to worry about putting in more time.”

“We’re short-handed, Jack,” Fish said, shaking his head. He stood up to leave again but Jack guided him back down into the chair.

“No we’re not,” he insisted. “We have John, Ben, and Alicia now. With me, Ianto, and Will that makes six. That's more people than we usually have.”

“Jack-”

“Listen to me Fish, because I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Gwen. Torchwood needs you. I need you. But the reasons that keep you away from here are the same reasons we do what we do. Being a real person once in a while isn’t a bad thing, so give yourself the freedom to do that when you need to.” Jack stayed silent for a few moments while he waited for his words to sink in.

Fish nodded and stood. He turned. “I need the distraction for a couple days, Jack. But after that, maybe.”

“Whatever you need,” he replied, a kind smile on his face. He stepped forward and put his hand on Fish’s shoulder. He rubbed it gently. “When you want to, and when you’re ready, I’m here for you.”

A small knot formed in Fish’s throat at the affection in Jack’s voice. He nodded. "I know, Jack."

Jack gave his shoulder a squeeze and nodded towards the door. "John's got something he wants you look at. No pressure for you to stick around though, all right?" 

"Thanks, Jack," Fish said, standing. He sighed and assumed that Jack had overheard most of his shouted conversation with Olivia. "I just don't know what to do with any of this yet." 

Jack nodded and said, "You want in on a little secret?" 

"Sure," Fish said.

"No one knows what to do," he said. 

"I don't know how she could do this to me," Fish said, his voice cracking. 

"There's nothing you can do about it now, Fish. It's done," Jack replied. "But if you want to be a part of his life, you should fight for it. Don't back down, you'll regret it." His gaze fell to the picture of Alice and Steven on his desk. "And nothing gets you those years back." 

A lump formed in Fish's throat. He nodded and Jack went to sit behind his desk. "Fish? I mean it. You need to knock off, you go, and don't worry about us."

"Thanks, Jack," Fish said, rising. He walked back out into the main Hub, pausing to ring Henry and pass on the devastating news. Wonderful as always, Henry moved into mother hen mode. Since this was the fourth time, the team was well rehearsed in taking care of their grieving family member. Henry rehired the housekeeper for them so they didn't have to worry about cleaning or laundry. Henry also promised to look in on Gwen's mother, Mary, more frequently. Mary was alone, Gwen's father having died years ago from a sudden heart attack. Though Gwen and Rhys looked after her as much as they could, they had busy lives of their own. Henry pitched in where he could, often doing small household repairs or driving Mary to and from doctor appointments and social outings. 

With his heart heavy, Fish walked up behind John Hart and put his hands on his shoulders. “Morning, John."

“Hey, Joe,” he said, smiling. He pointed at the shattered screen. “You all right?” 

“Look, about that-”

“No need for you to apologise, mate,” Hart said, shrugging. “We all have bad days.”

“Still, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Or anyone else here for that matter,” he said. 

“Forgiven and forgotten,” Hart said. 

Fish nodded. “Jack said you had something to go over with me?”

“I do,” he said. He turned and tapped at his workstation. “The two teenagers are in police custody. There is definitely a connection to the incident at University Hospital.” 

“You’re sure?” Fish asked.

“Yeah, especially since the mother worked security at University Hospital. She was on duty when the staff members went mad. Saw everything. She’s the one who dialed nine, nine, nine.” Hart hit a few buttons on his workstation. “Here you see her, watching the CCTV as the staff are gathered round the mobile. They’re watching some sort of video. Hammond is trying to figure out what it is because they’re having a laugh.”

“And less than twelve hours later she and her husband were bludgeoned in their bed? That’s one hell of a coincidence,” Fish said, widening his eyes.

“Yup, a big one. But even if it was a small one, no coincidence is too small for Torchwood,” Hart said, pointing his finger at the ceiling and waving it. “The only thing out of place in the house aside from the dead bodies?” He tapped the screen as he brought up a crime scene photograph. “The mother’s mobile on the daughter’s bedroom floor.”

“Do we have it?” Fish asked.

Hart stood and strode over to Fish’s worktable, picking the bagged and tagged mobile up and swinging it back and forth a bit. “Ianto and Jack brought back all the electronics.”

“Brilliant,” Fish exclaimed. He took the bag from Ianto and opened it, rolling the mobile out onto the table.

“Already downloaded and the computer is correlating the information,” Hart said, with a self-satisfied air.

Ianto stepped up to them, holding his silver tray. He set down two mugs of coffee. He asked, with amusement, “Coffee, Captain?”

“Thanks, Eye Candy.” He took the mug from Ianto and Fish's eyes went wide.

"Oi? What happened to all that whinging about brain chemistry and vascular damage?" Fish said with a laugh. 

"This orgasm in a cup is worth it," Hart said, sipping deeply.

Fish swore and reached into his back pocket. He took a twenty out of his wallet and handed it to Ianto. "Cheers, mate." 

"What's that about?" Hart asked, frowning. 

"Ianto bet me that he could get you to drink his coffee eventually," Fish said. 

Hart laughed. "Sorry I failed you, Joe." 

Ianto cleared his throat and said, "Jack wanted an update on your progess, John." 

"I'm waiting for the computer to process still," he said, waving behind him. "I think if this was some sort of new viral video, we'd have a larger problem on our hands." 

Ianto nodded, then suggested, “Maybe it's a specific version? When David and Mica send me pictures or videos, sometimes I’ve seen them already, but the ones they send me are different. Sometimes it’s a shorter or longer clip from a longer video. Different quality-that sort of thing.”

“Could also be cutting its own head off,” Fish said.

“That's true too,” Ianto said. 

“Once we identify the code, it'll be easy to fix. Tosh's viruses'll make quick work of it," Fish said. 

Hart said, “There's less sharing of actual pictures or videos anymore. You want to show someone something, you send a hyperlink in a text message or an e-mail with some imbedded pictures. There’s a lot of clickbait out there.”

Fish raised an eyebrow. "You know the word clickbait?" 

Hart rolled his eyes. "I'm getting more twenty-first century savvy." 

“I think we’d have a bigger problem if it was a website,” Ianto said, frowning. He was about to say something else when his mobile began ringing. He heaved out a sigh. “UNIT, probably for a sit-rep. The media got a hold of the hospital story.”

As Ianto went off to deal with UNIT, Fish turned to the workstation. Hart’s searches had come back and Fish was taking a look at the data comparing the two mobile telephones. The first thing Fish did was look at the browsing history and there was nothing. The second thing he looked at was text messages and e-mail. There was nothing there either. He delved into the first mobile telephone’s digital contents, carefully checking each picture and app before moving on. At around lunch, Jack stepped up behind Fish, putting his hand on his technician’s shoulder.

“Anything, Fish, John?” he asked.

Fish shook his head. “There’s no sign of alien code anywhere. When the computer didn’t find anything, John and I started going through everything by hand.”

“Everything’s normal–the pictures, the videos. Everything,” Hart said, frustrated.

Ianto walked over to them, slipping his phone into his pocket. “UNIT said they’re having incidents all over the globe.”

“Shit,” Fish muttered.

“They’re isolated. While I was on with Colonel Mace, Ethan phoned. He’s had three incidents–all in New York. There’s two in Canada and two more in Australia," Ianto reported. 

"Australia?" Fish gasped. 

"Sydney," Ianto assured. 

"The same planet is too fucking close to my niece and nephew," Fish replied. And David. 

"I want you both to coordinate with MiB and UNIT. See if the Australians and the Canadians want in on this too," Jack said, turning to Ianto. "Call in Alicia." 

Ianto nodded and walked over to the north stairs. 

Fish took out his mobile telephone and sent a quick text to his sister telling her there was a nasty electronic device virus going around and that she was to take away Emily and Peter's phones immediately, and that her and Robert were to not use theirs either. He also sent the same text to Olivia, and realized he didn't even know if his son had a smart phone.

Hart and Fish spent the rest of the evening meticulously working through the browsing histories of all the victims. As before, the whole process took longer because the computer was examining each website before allowing Fish and Hart to look at it. There were also the usual rift interruptions. Jack, Ianto, and Miranda took on most of the rift alerts to give them time to work, but there were a few disruptions. By the time Jack told everyone to go home, Fish was starting to see triple.

“You all right, Joe?” Hart asked.

Fish nodded. “Getting a headache. Too much staring at that bloody screen.”

“I mean you’ve been checking your phone every few minutes since lunch. Everything all right?” he asked, concerned.

Fish opened his mouth intent on answering that he was fine, but instead everything that had happened to him over the past two days came rushing out of his mouth in one long breath. For a second, Hart stood there stunned, not having expected the overload of information.

“Shite thing for a woman to do,” Hart said, frowning. “That’s a crime on my planet."

Unlike Jack, Hart freely discussed his own culture. Fish’s eyebrows shot up. “A crime?”

“Once your ex knew she was pregnant and decided to hide it from you, it’s a crime. It’s considered a form of kidnapping on my world."

"Kidnapping? It's not exactly like they can be separated!"

"Fifty-first century, Joe. The abortion issue in this time is all about a woman’s body, but it’s not like that where and when I’m from. The fetus is considered to equally belong to those whose genetic material contributed to it.”

“So you’re saying if Livie had wanted an abortion, she’d need my consent?”

Hart nodded. “It’s your child too.”

“That’s crazy! You’re saying I could force her to go through a pregnancy she didn’t want to continue?”

“Ah you're forgetting, again, I'm from the fifty first century. They'd be able to transfer the developing fetus to a surrogate to carry on with the pregnancy. Under Kanai law, terminating the pregnancy's not entirely her choice to make.”

“What would happen to her?” Fish asked, curious.

“It depends on the situation and how far you’d want to pursue it. Anything from nothing to prison.”

Fish shook his head. “Things are certainly different in your time.”

“That’s just my planet’s take on it. Laws like that vary a lot from planet to planet.” Hart shrugged. “Jack's planet's different. They have some sort of arbitration process because the technology to transfer the fetus isn't as readily available and surrogates are scarce on the outer colonies.”

Fish looked at his mobile screen again. “I gave her a few days to set things right. She’s supposed to ring, let me know when I can come see him-meet him properly.”

Hart wheeled his chair closer to his friend. He put his hand on Fish’s knee. “You going to be okay?”

Fish raised his head, looking around for the others. He dropped his voice low. “I never wanted children. The idea of being a father scares the piss out of me. I mean, what if he hates me for not being there? I don’t even know him yet and I’m already cocking it up.”

Hart rolled his eyes. “You’re not cocking it up, Joe. And you’ve no control over how David reacts to any of this.”

“I suppose not…” Fish said, sighing. Then he frowned. “How’d you know my son’s name’s David?”

“You said,” Hart replied.

“I did?” He certainly didn’t remember mentioning David’s name.

“When you were spilling your guts out," he insisted.

Fish’s frown deepened.

“Joe, you’ll do fine. Better than my old man, to be sure," Hart said, rolling his eyes. "Jack always says I'm way more normal than I should be."

Fish raised an eyebrow. Though he had gotten a lot better lately, Hart was pretty fucked up. He couldn't even begin to imagine what sort of upbringing had created a man like John Hart.  

“I keep wondering what I’m going to be to him. I’ve missed so much already.” His voice was full of regret. 

Hart winked at Fish and said, “Well, there’s a quick fix for that.”

“What?”

Hart tapped his wrist. “You ever want to go back, take a look around? Let me know.”

“Are you serious?” Fish gasped.

“We’ll keep it on the down low, of course. I mean, it wouldn’t be ideal, just being a bystander, but get some dates and times of things from your ex and we can poke around.”

The idea of being able to see David being born ignited something in his chest. He shook his head. “Thank you, John, that’s thoughtful of you, but I can’t.”

“Oh for fuck's sake, Joe, you're too much of a goody-two shoes.” Hart jerked his head towards the north stairs. “C’mon. Let’s go watch your son being born. We’ll be back before anyone knows we’re gone.”

A lump in his throat, Fish followed his friend wondering just what he was getting himself into.


	6. Chapter 6

Henry stepped back from the large painting, surveying his work.  

_Nearly…_ He squinted and then took another step backwards. With the brush in hand, he moved back, dabbing at the canvas. While he and his husband had been abroad, his art had been confined to drawing for his own pleasure. He hadn’t painted at all and the hiatus made him feel rusty. It was probably his imagination, but the brush felt awkward in his hand and it was taking longer to mix the color he wanted. It was a small price to pay for the blissful six month trip and his skill would return quickly.

Henry could’ve spent the rest of Fish’s life happily travelling the world with him, but Fish’s restlessness to return home and to Torchwood wouldn’t be assuaged. Their disagreement was on hold, but Henry hoped Fish's new status as a father would impact his decision to return to such a dangerous job. Henry didn't understand why Fish persisted in his desire to remain at Torchwood. Wasn't their love enough? Henry had plenty of money. Fish didn't need to work. And hadn't he been through enough? 

The sound of a light, gentle tone brought his head up from the painting. He glanced at the clock, seeing it was time for lunch. Before the advent of electric lights, Henry would have to stop painting once the sun had set as he lost his lighting. Now, all he needed to do was pick up the remote control Fish had connected to the lights to continue working. It made it significantly easier to lose track of time, so Henry had gotten into the habit of programming a timer on his mobile telephone to tell him to take breaks. Though he was immortal, he was not immune to repetitive stress injuries. Sometimes, after painting for endless hours, he would get headaches from eye strain, or neck pain from holding his head at odd angles. Yes, these injuries would vanish, but they were irritating interruptions. Henry found it better to practice prevention. 

He moved through several yoga poses to stretch out his body, then stepped over to the other side of the room where he had a small kitchen area. He took his sandwich out ofthe fridge and a bottle of water. Instead of sitting, he leaned against the small worktop and stared at the painting from this greater distance, a slight smile on his face. 

He had been working on this painting for years. Fish was nude and asleep on their bed. The sheet was twisted around his legs and the morning sun streamed through the windows. Henry had wrestled with the composition at first, trying to find the proper balance between the artistic and recreating the moment. It had been their first morning in the loft. Henry had risen early, as was his habit. Once Henry was out of the bed, Fish had begun his own habit of tossing and turning. When Henry had returned after his exercise to shower and change clothes, Fish had been sprawled on his back. The light had been ethereal. The lingering construction dust had cast beams of brightness on his husband’s sleeping form. The arrangement of the sheet, twisting around Fish's limbs and his nude body, suggested the erotic. Henry had done some quick reference sketches, and even snapped a few pictures with his camera phone. He had never shown the painting to his husband, positive it would embarrass him. Even though Fish's modesty was barely concealed below the sheet, its outline was obvious. 

As Henry balled up his sandwich wrapper, he found himself satisfied with his progress on the painting for the day. One advantage of being away for so long was that he was able to look at all his abandoned works with new eyes. When they’d left on their trip, Henry had had six paintings in progress. Two had been part of his dancer series. Upon returning home, Henry had suddenly found them to be utter rubbish. He’d destroyed the canvases to begin again. Influenced by his recent time abroad, he’d begun a new series that evoked peace and inner tranquility instead of movement. Though he despised photography, Fish had enlightened him to its usage as references. While Henry's travel sketchbook was a trove of new ideas, the photographs had captured color and the videos had captured movements in a way Henry's still sketches could not.

After binning his sandwich wrapper and refilling his water bottle, he turned to the preliminary parts of his process. In front of a gigantic cork board, Henry had pinned up dozens of pictures he’d taken during his travels with Fish.

The journey had been amazing. Not just the time with his husband, but everything he had experienced there had had an impact on his life. One visit to a Buddhist temple had had a profound effect on him. When you could live centuries, years whizzed past at a dizzying pace. From carriages to automobiles to smartphones. The world of today scarcely resembled the one Henry had been born into. During their visit to the Buddhist temple, Henry had seen monks in deep meditation. There had been a stillness and a deep presence in the moment that had struck Henry to his core.

Where Henry had tried to capture the movement of the human form, now he had a compulsion to paint this stillness. He had no idea how, but he was going to figure it out. Picking up his sketchbook and pencils, he set the timer on his phone for one hour, then sat on a rolling chair in front of the corkboard and began to draw. He began sketching out any part of the photographs that spoke to him, that moved him. 

Deeply engrossed, he nearly leapt out of his skin when a blinding flash of light enveloped his studio accompanied by a loud snap. The sketchbook fluttered to the floor and pencils rolled every which way. Acting on instinct, he grabbed his sword, lifting it in his defense, pointing it straight at his husband and Captain Hart. Stunned, he lowered the sword and managed to croak out, “Joe?”

Fish’s face was streaked with tears and his mobile telephone was clutched to his chest. He launched himself at Henry. Henry put down the weapon and held Fish tightly. “Joe? What’s going on? What’s the matter?”

The minute he was safely encased in Henry’s arms, Fish began to sob. Henry looked to Captain Hart for some explanation. Hart said, “I took him back in time to watch David being born.”

Henry clutched Fish to him. He briefly marveled how his husband and friend had just travelled through time and Henry thought it nothing more unusual than popping to the corner market. He sat Fish down on the sofa, but before he could sit himself, Hart dragged him away. 

“Just so you know, when I brought us back, I came back a little early.” He opened his manipulator. “Oh, a lot early. So there’s two of him.”

“I beg your pardon?” Henry asked.

“We actually left at around seven tonight. I figured a day with you’d do him some good since he's in a right state. I brought him back early, he’s at the Hub, and he’s here. You following?” Hart asked. 

Henry blinked, trying to sort out the verb tenses Hart had used. Time travel made his head hurt. “I believe I understand, John. Thank you.”

Hart nodded and then stepped back to the middle of the room, noticing the painting for the first time. He stopped and asked, pointing, “Is that your work?”

Henry frowned, displeased Hart had seen something so intimate and personal. “That is private, John.”

Hart continued to stare at the painting, the awe on his face obvious. Henry was about to repeat what he said, when Hart turned and dropped his gaze.

“Sorry. I've just never seen the entire original. It's always been one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.” 

With another flash of light and snap, Hart was gone. Finally able to focus on his husband, Henry sat down next to him. “Are you all right, love?”

Fish nodded. He held out the mobile telephone. On the screen was a picture of a scrub clad Fish holding a swaddled infant. “Olivia had an emergency c-section. John had us posing as staff. I got to walk him down to the nursery.” He took the phone back, swiping back over the pictures he took. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” 

“Perfect,” Henry said, softly.

Henry put his hand on Fish’s leg. “Are you all right, love?”

Fish nodded. “It’s surreal. When I found out about him, I thought I’d want to share his life but it's so much more than that. I want to be his father. I want to be there for him, for everything.” He wiped at the tears on his face.

"A boy needs his father," Henry said.  

Fish stared down at the picture. “It really is a miracle. Suddenly, there he was.”

“A true gift from God.” Henry snuggled in closer to Fish, draping his leg over Fish’s. “A soul’s arrival in this world is always miraculous.”

“I’ve missed so much…” Fish trailed off, shaking his head. He wiped tears away. 

Henry put his arms around him and pulled him into his arms. “We’ll do what we can to ensure you are a part of David’s life.”

“Livie still hasn’t phoned,” Fish said, frustrated.

“Joe, you gave Olivia two days-"

"It's been two days!"

"No, Joe, it's only been one. I understand time travel is disorienting. You only texted Olivia yesterday."

Fish groaned. "David was born at night, now it's morning again. I'm all bloody turned around!" He punched the arm of the sofa in frustration. "This waiting is going to fucking kill me, Henry.”

“I know, love. I’m here. You gave her two days. We must be patient. We’ll get through this together,” he said, softly. 

* * *

Fish was grateful for the extra day he spent with Henry. How easily his husband had accepted the oddity of his time travel unnerved him. At one moment, Henry had joked about how two separate versions of his husband was giving him all manner of carnal ides. The levity had helped calm his nerves and the next morning Henry had urged him to go into the Hub again. 

After spending the morning going through Archive files with Alicia, Fish sent Olivia a polite text and didn't receive a reply. Instead of eating his lunch, he'd made a frantic and angry phone call to his husband. After Henry talked him down, he left a few strongly worded voice mails throughout the rest of the day.

Fish had had to have Henry calm him down again. After a lengthly phone call, they’d decided on directly confronting Olivia rather than siccing a solicitor on her. What Henry didn’t know was that Fish planned to go down to University Hospital and flash his Torchwood credentials about, but to Fish, it fell under the category of ‘directly confronting.’

Trying to keep his anger in check, Fish left the Hub and went straight to University Hospital. He strode into Olivia’s workplace with a determined look on his face. He flashed his credentials to the desk and they let him pass. He walked up to the in-patient surgical ward and walked up to the nurse’s station. He held his credentials up again.

“I’m looking for Nurse Olivia Dumont,” he said, trying to keep the significant anger out of his voice.

“I think she’s in the theatre,” the nurse said.

“Well get her out of it,” he snapped. “Now.”

The other man looked startled and immediately got up and walked away. He returned a few minutes later with Olivia next to him, looking panicked.

_Good_ , he thought, satisfied.

“Torchwood,” he said, sharply. He waved towards the same office they'd had their original confrontation. “A moment of your time please, Nurse Dumont.”

Once they were inside, he rounded on her. “I gave you two days, Livie. It’s been three.”

“This is what you are now, Joe? You ambush me at work? Flash those about?” she said, defiant.

“You think I want to do it this way?” he said, tossing his credentials down on the desk. “What about all this makes you think _I’m_ the one in the wrong? I’m here because you’re forcing my hand. I’m not going away! Stalling and putting me off isn’t going to work. He’s my son too!”

She stood there, chewing on her cuticles. In between fingers, she also gnawed at her lip. He winced. He’d seen Olivia do this many times. She would likely chew her fingers and lip until they were both bloody. Actually, she already had. He saw dark, bloody scabs along her fingertips. The scab on the right side of her bottom lip that looked like a cold sore, but it was actually self-trauma. She’d been picking at it.

“Come to supper Friday at seven. You already know the address,” she said, finally.

“Thank you, Livie,” Fish said, relieved. He put his credentials away. “I’m sorry about this, I really am. You know me. I'm not like this. I just didn’t see any other way. You weren't answering my texts or my calls. You backed me into a corner and I just didn't know-”

"I'm sorry, Joe. I am. This is turning my world upside-down too." She took a breath and said, "Mum's also been ill."

"Barbara? What's wrong?" Fish asked. He vaguely wondered how she'd felt about all this.

"Breast cancer. She had a double mastectomy a few years ago. They found a spot on her lung last week on a routine scan," Olivia said, sighing. "She's trying to decide if she wants surgery. She's been ringing me all week, on and off, asking me questions."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Fish said.

"We'll deal with it. Tad's scared even though her prognosis is good. You know how Tad worries and how reliant he is on her." Olivia's step-father, Richard, had severe obsessive compulsive disorder and was heavily medicated. His almost stepfather-in-law had always relied heavily on his wife to perform simple daily activities. Fish recalled one particular Christmas where it had taken Olivia's step-father ten minutes to fill an ice tray as he kept filling and refilling it, the water level never exactly right.

"Do you need me to bring anything Friday?" he asked. 

"No." Olivia shifted back and forth and then cautiously said, “And just you, Joe. I don’t want to introduce some strange woman to David even if you are married to her. This is going to be hard enough as it is. I've no problem with her spending time with David, because I'm sure someone you've decided to marry is a good person-that's not it. I just want to take one step at a time here.”

Fish swallowed. He shifted, nervously fiddling with his wedding ring. Olivia noticed and winced. She said, apologetic, “She’s going spare over this isn’t she?” She walked over to him and put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry if I’m causing problems in your marriage, Joe. I really am. Would you like me to talk to her? Maybe the four of us could go to dinner? Or would that be too weird?”

He could tell the apology and concern were genuine. He took a deep breath. He had to tell her about Henry. It was better for him to do so now. He had the perfect segue, but he couldn’t figure out how to say it. He stood there for a few seconds and then sighed. He didn’t look up as he said, “I’m not married to a woman, Livie.”

Olivia didn’t believe him. She gave his arm a playful slap. She shook her head and smiled saying, “It was funny the first time, Joe, but I’m not falling for it again.”

“I wasn’t entirely having one over on you,” he said. He took out his mobile and turned the screen to face Olivia. He’d used one of their wedding pictures as his background. “His name’s Henry Blount.”

Olivia took a step backwards, so shocked that she collapsed into the chair behind her. “Oh my God, Joe!”

Fish turned the mobile back and stared down at the picture. A crooked smile came across his face. “He’s great, Livie. He’s really great. You’ll like him.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you were gay, Joe?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t unkind.

He rolled his eyes. She was probably thinking she dodged some sort of bullet. “I’m not gay, Livie.” He could see she was about to protest so he said, “It’s not like that. I can’t explain it. It’s not men. It’s just… it’s just him. It's just Henry.”

He let out a deep sigh and leaned against the desk. He wondered if he was about to over share. This wasn’t the relationship they had anymore, but Olivia had been his best friend. Then she’d tossed his heart into a blender and turned it on frappe. But they had a child together. He was going to have to learn to get along with her again, and to talk to her again. He said, slowly, “Henry’s the first bloke. It sent me for a loop, I won’t deny that. I saw him and it was lightning in my heart. It took me some time to make sense of it all. Thought I was losing my mind really.”

Olivia smiled. "Or falling in love, which is the same thing."

Fish laughed. "Mate of mine said it just like that." He looked down at his mobile again, smiling. “He was traveling here on business and swept me off my feet. A few months later we were living together.”

“A few _months_?” Olivia practically screeched.

“I told you, he swept me off my feet. Like some sort of mad, amazing fairy tale. He lived in Canada, but moved his whole life here for me... for us,” he said, smiling wider. “We waited a few years to get married, but I think that was more Henry being a perfectionist about the proposal than anything else.”

“You know, Joe. I don’t know what’s harder for me to believe. That you’re married to another man or that you moved in with someone after only a few months. This isn’t some daft midlife crisis, is it?”

“No, Livie,” he said with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “And now you sound like my sister. She said the same thing.”

There was fear and interest in her eyes at the mention of his sister. “How is Anna?”

“She’s good. Robert had a bit of a health scare too. You remember how he used to smoke?”

Olivia nodded. "Like a bloody chimney. Anna was always on him to stop, I remember that." 

"He finally quit about a year after we split. Well, a couple months ago, he'd gotten a cough that wouldn't go away. He'd been tired and losing weight," Fish said. 

Olivia was a nurse and jumped to the same conclusion everyone else had. "Oh no..." 

Fish nodded. "We thought it was lung cancer. Scared him and Anna something awful. But all the scans were clear."

“What about the kids? Did they ever adopt again?” Olivia asked.

Both of Fish’s niece and nephew were adopted. When he and Olivia had been set to get married, his sister and her husband were in the process of adopting a third time. “Emily's great. Peter's having a rough go at school, skiving off a lot. I mean, I get it. He's fourteen and he'd rather be out with his mates than studying, but he doesn't seem to understand that skateboarding with his friends won't translate into passing grades." He sighed. "Anna and Robert aren't carers anymore. A year after we split, they placed a set of twins with her and Robert. It was working out great and they were all set to adopt them. But something happened and it all fell through at the last minute. Anna wouldn't even tell me what happened, she was so upset. She and Robert loved those girls. After that, I think they were too heartbroken to try again.”

“I’m sorry to hear. I always liked your sister,” she said.

There was an awkward pause and Fish said, “No, I haven’t said anything to her yet. I’d rather not have my sister arrested for murder.”

Olivia winced.

Fish gave her a slightly nervous look and asked, “Me and Henry aren’t going to be a problem, are we, Livie?”

“What kind of person do you take me for, Joe?” she shot back at him, highly offended. “But what I said before still stands. Meeting you is going to be hard enough on David. One thing at a time. You first. Then Henry.”

Fish wanted to argue but he held back. Henry was his husband. He wanted David to be a part of both their lives… but Olivia was right. _One thing at a time…_ He nodded and put his mobile back into his pocket.

“I’ll let you get back to work. I’m sorry, again, for ambushing you here,” he said, trying to sound sincere and apologetic.

She swallowed hard and said, “I didn’t give you much choice, did I?” She paused. “You know how sorry I am, don’t you, Joe?” she asked with a shaky voice.

Hart’s words rose up in his brain. “It doesn’t matter, does it, Livie? It’s done. All I can control is what happens from this point forward. He’s my son. I want to get to know him. I want to be there for him… if that’s what he wants too.”

Olivia nodded and stood. “He asks about his father all the time. I’m sure he’ll want you in his life, Joe.”

Fish cleared his throat and said, "Henry and I would also like to financially contribute." 

Olivia waved, "We don't have to discuss that at all." 

"He's my son, Olivia. If he's taking piano lessons or if there are fees for sports, or he wants to go to camp or something, I should contribute to that. He's my responsibility too." He cleared his throat and said, "I'd like to work it out privately to avoid the fees child maintenance service would charge." 

He pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. "I spoke to a solicitor and he used the child maintenance calculator to come up with a rough estimate of a weekly payment-a hundred pounds a week." 

"A hundred pounds?" she said, surprised. 

Fish nodded. "It's based on my income and a bunch of other stuff, apparantly" He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Olivia. "That's the information for an account in David's name I've made with the back support in it, going all the way back to when he was born." 

Olivia's eyes went wide. "Joe! That's over sixty thousand pounds!" 

"Nearly sixty five, actually," Fish replied. Even though it was a significant chunk of his life's savings, Fish didn't care. He should've been paying this all along. He reached into his pocket and held out a cheque. "This is the payment for this week. If you give me the account and routing numbers, I'll set it up to be directly deposited for you, if you'd prefer." 

He could tell how uncomfortable the money was making, Olivia. "Remember that cheque you sent me after you called off the wedding? That was you, taking material responsibility. This is me doing the same. Take it, Livie." 

"We can work out a reduced amount. This is a lot of money," she insisted, shaking her head. 

"If I couldn't afford it, I would tell you," he replied. 

She reached out and took the cheque. "Thank you. David is taking lessons outside of school. This is going to help Ian and I out a lot." 

The bitter words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I was afraid you’d told him Ian was his father.”

“No, Joe, I never lied to him,” she said.

Fresh anger well up in him as he strode towards the door. He threw it open, then spat over his shoulder, “It’s called a _lie_ of omission for a reason, Livie. Don’t you fucking forget that.” 

He slammed the door behind him with a satisfying bang.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Henry stopped the car and turned it off. Fish barely registered it. He'd been sitting in the passenger seat, staring at the small wrapped gift. It had taken him days to decide whether or not to even show up with some sort of gift. He didn't want it to seem like he was attempting to buy David's affections. Once he'd decided to get a gift, it had taken him just as long to figure out what that gift would be. After he'd decided on the gift itself, it had taken over an hour for him to wrap it properly. He knew David wouldn't care. When he was David's age, he'd been more interested in ripping the paper off, not whether it was wrapped well or not. But still, he'd taken the time to wrap the box properly, refusing Henry's offer of help. The box was small and he knew it would probably disappoint his son. Children always thought the best gifts came in the bigger boxes.

"Do you want me to walk you up to the door, Joe?" Henry asked.

He couldn't imagine why Olivia could have an objection to that and he nodded wordlessly. Fish could never remember having been this nervous or paralyzed with fear. The only thing that came close was when his father had died. He could remember sitting in the funeral home, staring up at the coffin with his father's body in it, feeling and thinking nothing. And that was almost how he felt now. Every once in a while his stomach would flip, but his heart and mind were practically frozen. Like a wounded animal, hiding in the dark, his heart was afraid to beat and his mind afraid to think for fear that small movement would bring down a hurricane. 

He walked up to the house, hand in hand with Henry, his head down. His heart was pounding in his chest and his throat was dry.  Henry reached up and twisted the rotary doorbell. Olivia answered the door, narrowing her eyes at Henry.

"I asked you to come by yourself, Joe," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Mrs. Dumont, I am not here to meet David, merely to introduce myself and support Joe. I'll be waiting in the car," he said. Usually, his husband was the picture of charm, but Fish could hear the barely restrained disdain in his husband's chilly voice.

Henry extended his hand and said, stiffly, "Henry Blount. I'm Joe's husband."

Olivia took Henry’s hand, immediately letting go of it. She stood aside so that Fish could enter the house. "Come in, Joe." 

Fish turned and looked at Henry, not willing to let go of his hand. He swallowed, his throat almost completely dry. Henry reached up and cupped his face. "You'll be fine, love."

Fish nodded and finally let go of Henry's hand. He put his own hands down at his sides, twisting his fingers in on themselves, trying to rid them of their clamminess. Unsuccessful, he wiped them on his jeans. He shook his wrist, feeling the watch rattle. He prayed there would be no triggers in the house and he wouldn't have to avoid a panic attack along with the rest of the anxiety tightening every muscle in his body.. Henry reached out and put his arms around Fish's neck. He whispered into his ear, "You'll be fine. I love you, Joe."

"I love you, too," he whispered back. He hugged Henry tightly.

Henry rested his forehead against Fish's and cradling his face in his hands. "Everything will be all right. Just breathe, love."

Fish listened to the advice, breathing in deeply and slowly through his nose. He exhaled slowly and, as he'd seen Henry, Ianto, and Miranda do often, rolled his shoulders. It helped a bit.

"Better?" Henry asked. He slid his hands forward, cupping Fish’s face. “Just be yourself.”

Fish nodded.

"Mr. Blount?" Olivia interrupted. "I've changed my mind. You don't have to wait in the car. Come in, please."

"Mrs. Dumont, that is unnecessary-"

"No, it is. And it's Olivia," Olivia said, insistent. She looked at her ex. “I’m sorry, Joe. I didn’t understand."

"Thank you, Livie. Thank you," Fish said, relieved. He squeezed her arm as he walked past her into the house and Henry gave her a small smile and a look of gratitude.

Fish handed Olivia his coat as Ian came down the stairs. He looked uncomfortable and more than a little exasperated. A silent conversation occurred between Olivia and her husband, ending with Ian nodding at his wife, his mouth a little thin. Fish could tell the man's annoyance was pointed firmly in Olivia's direction.

"I'll be down with David soon," she said with a tight smile and then headed up the stairs.

"Hi, good to see you again, Joe,” he said, holding out his hand to Fish. "I'm sorry, about back at the hospital. I was getting all set to tell you myself. You shouldn't have ever found out that way. I've been trying to get her to talk to you for years. I would have contacted you myself, but I had no idea how to find you. The way she talked about you, I thought you'd moved back to Australia. Finding out that you’re in the same bloody city…”

"Thank you for being there for him when I couldn't," Fish said. He shook his hand and gave the other man a smile.

"At first, I thought you were some deadbeat-no offence," Ian said with a slight laugh. "But she hadn't told me the truth. Nearly split us up when she did. I couldn't believe she'd do something like this. Keeping him from you when you're a perfectly decent bloke?"

"I'm sorry to hear," Fish said. "That woman could make hell freeze over waiting for something to go away while she ignored it."

"Isn't that the truth? Oh, sorry, being rude, I am. You must be Joe's husband… or do you prefer partner... spouse? This is a bit new to me," Ian said, holding his hand out to Henry. "I'm Ian."

Fish watched as Henry's stance shifted. When Henry was with Fish, he was relaxed and himself, often lapsing into what Fish found to be an old fashioned pattern of speech. This tensioning of his shoulders and the shift of his weight to one foot was Henry's way of attempting to put on a more modern persona. It was a persona Fish knew was more forced when he was with him. "Henry. And whichever you're comfortable with's fine.”

"Come on into the lounge. Drink? Beer? Soda?"

"Just some water, please," Fish said. He could certainly go for something stronger but didn’t think it was a good idea.

"The same."

"Have a seat."

Ian wandered off into the kitchen to get their water while Fish and Henry sat down on the sofa. Fish started spinning the box by its corners in his hands, trying to release some of his nervous energy. Henry rubbed his hand in circles on his back, trying to soothe him.

"He's going to hate this," Fish said, shaking his head.

Even though Ian was in the next room, Henry was still minding his words. He continue to rub Fish's back as he said, “You didn't tell me what you picked.”

He'd tried to help his lover as he sifted through a variety of toys, video games and other gifts. Fish had been unable to decide on any of them.

"It's my father's service medal. He gave it to me when I was about David's age." Fish had had his sister overnight him the medal from Perth. Years ago, when he’d first joined Torchwood, Fish had sent anything to his sister he hadn’t wanted to end up in storage, the medal included. He’d thought Anna may want to give it to Peter. Anna hadn’t even unpacked the boxes of items Fish had mailed her. So, after a specularly loud, angry, and explosive conversation where she threatened Olivia’s life several times, she shipped the boxes back to her brother making him promise that she would meet David as soon as possible.

Ian returned to the lounge about the same time that Fish heard feet on the stairs. He stood up, the box in one hand, Henry's hand in the other. Just be yourself… he thought. He'd thought the same thing right before his first official date with Henry. Sound advice in any situation…

David walked over to him nervously. “Hi.”

Unlike the first time the two of them had met, David didn’t offer his hand. He wasn’t acting the polite young man, he was behaving like an uncertain and nervous boy.

“Hi,” Fish replied, just as nervous. “I’m Joe.”

"Mum says I'm to call you Dad."

"You don't have to do that if you don't want to," Fish insisted. He flicked his eyes to his ex. “Let's start with Joe, okay?"

"Sure," David said with a shrug. "You're not what I expected."

"Gee, thanks," Fish said with a laugh.

"I mean, everyone says I look like her," David said, jerking his head over his shoulder, "so I didn't think I'd look exactly like you."

Fish narrowed his eyes a bit. "Be more respectful towards your Mum, yeah?"

"Sorry." David looked a bit sheepish, as if he hadn't expected Fish to correct him. "Mum said she never told you about me. That it's complicated."

Fish heard the bitterness in that last word. He'd always hated when adults said that to him as a child. He hated it when the immortals said it to him now. Even though he knew not being there for his son wasn't his fault, he still felt a tremendous amount of guilt. "It is complicated. I'm not going to be able to say it enough but I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't been there, been a proper father to you."

"Mum said it’s her fault," he said, almost looking for confirmation.

Fish looked over his shoulder at Henry. Henry and his own son had spent a long time estranged because Henry had told him lies of omission, censoring the truth to protect him. He wished he could ask Henry what he should do, but Henry already had. You have a good heart… follow it… Fish looked at Olivia and then back at David. It was kind of his ex to allow the blame to be fixed in her direction, but even though Fish felt it firmly belonged there, he couldn't allow it. She's the mother of your child. You loved her once. 

"Hey, listen to me. This is not your Mum's fault. It's not my fault either. Sometimes things happen and it isn't anyone's fault, David," Fish insisted. "No one can change the past but I can change what happens from now on." Tears started to cloud his eyes as he handed the small box to David. "So I thought I'd start with this."

David smiled broadly and immediately tore into the paper. His smile was the most perfect thing in the world to Fish.

Olivia immediately reminded, "David…"

"Thank you," the boy said, automatically.

Fish smiled, quickly wiping his eyes.

"A medal? Is it yours?" David asked, turning the box in his hands. “Are you a soldier?”

"No, I’m a scientist. But my Dad, your Granddad, was a soldier. It was given to him for serving in the Australian Army," Fish said, his voice shaking a bit. "He gave it to me. And now I'm giving it to you. Sorry it's not something cooler."

“No, I like it,” he said, smiling wider.

"Why don't you show your father your room?" Olivia offered.

"Sure," David said, still examining the medal.

Fish reached out for Henry's hand for a moment and squeezed. David noticed, looking from Fish to Henry and back again. Fish noticed and squirmed inwardly. Now he saw what Olivia had meant by one thing at a time. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with him yet.

David led him up into his room and sat down on the bed, putting the medal on his bedside table. Fish looked around the room. It was very orderly for the room of a ten year old boy. Everything was neatly put away and organised. Must've gotten this from Olivia. He certainly didn't get it from me... 

“So who’s that bloke with you?” David asked.

“My husband, Henry. Your Mum and I thought it’d be better for you to just meet me for now,” Fish said, side stepping the question.

"Is that what you and Mum meant by complicated? You being gay?” David asked. He rolled his eyes again. “I don’t care if you’re a poof.”

“Oi, you watch your mouth!" Christ, I sound like my father…

There'd been many times Fish had wished his father was still alive, but no more so than in this one moment. He wanted to ask his father what to do, to ask him how to be as good a father as he'd been. Fish's mind filled with his father's understanding smile. He swore he could hear his father's gentle chuckle and smell his odd vanilla pipe tobacco. But, son, I already have...

Fish swallowed hard and tried to beat back the tears that were incongruous with their topic. He cleared his throat and sat down on David's bed next to him. He always remembered how, when he was a child, his father had never talked to him like one. He'd never felt dismissed because he was young. The discussions had been age appropriate, but never condescending. 

“Look, David, the long and short of it is that when grown ups say it's complicated, it really means that the story is embarrassing and full of uncomfortable feelings and awkward things that we don't want to talk about to anyone and sometimes don't even want to admit to ourselves. What's complicated between me and your Mum has nothing to do with Henry and I'm not gay."

David raised his eyebrows at his father. He let out a disbelieving laugh. His eyes settled on the ring on Fish’s hand. “What about being married to another bloke isn't gay? Cos that's kind of the definition of gay.”

At that moment, Fish was vividly reminded of something his mother once said to him about hoping he'd one day have a child that had half of his brain and a quarter of his mouth. Finally got your wish, Mum… It didn’t feel like it was his place to have this discussion with David. Even if he was his father, he wasn’t his Dad. That’s Ian… a distant part of his mind snickered.

David shrugged when he didn’t receive an answer. He picked up a game console controller and handed it to Fish. "Mum says you want to spend time with me."

Fish took the controller. "Yeah, I do. If that's okay with you."

"I guess," he said, shrugging. He turned on the console and loaded a game. 

Fish smiled a bit when Grand Turismo loaded; a racing game. He could handle a racing game.

“So are you going to tell me what about marrying another bloke isn’t gay?” David repeated as he went through the game menu.

There was no way he was getting around this conversation. He tried to concentrate on the race as he spoke, but he couldn’t help the lopsided grin that came over his face. “Henry and I’ve been married nearly two years.”

“See? That’s gay,” David snarked.

“Love’s more complicated than that. It’s not about gay or straight for me. I’m not married to another bloke. I’m married to Henry,” Fish explained. He felt like a complete idiot. He wondered what it was about this little boy that was making him feel so utterly inadequate. Every word that came out of his mouth felt wrong. He started to feel intensely awkward even though David seemed to accept the explanation. “I hope you won’t mind spending time with him too.”

“I guess,” David said, shrugging.

Fish turned the controller, trying to take a corner too fast. He crashed and rolled his car. “Bugger!”

“Oi, you’re telling me to watch my mouth!” David laughed.

“Hey, this is all new to me okay?” Fish said, defensive. "Just don't swear in front of your Mum. She'll think you're getting it from me." 

“You lost,” David teased.

“Yup,” Fish said. Racing games weren’t really his forte. “Give me a chance to redeem myself?”

“Sure.”

Halfway into their fourth race, Olivia lightly knocked on the door frame, peeking in. “You two okay in here?”

Fish looked from David to his ex and back again. David nodded and shrugged. Fish smiled and looked at Olivia. He felt tears in his eyes. “Yeah, never better, Livie.”

“Why don’t you both wash up and come down for dinner?” she asked. She gave them both a tight smile and left the room.

Fish looked at his son, nervously. While Olivia could produce edible food, nothing she cooked could ever be considered palatable. It was impossible to keep the fear out of his voice when he said, “Tell me she isn’t the one cooking.”

“Tad… Ian cooks,” David said, correcting himself mid-sentence.

Tad… the Welsh word for father. That felt like someone had cut Fish’s heart out with a grapefruit spoon. He swallowed back the hurt. “Hey, is that what you call Ian?”

David nodded, looking a bit embarrassed.

“You keep on doing that, okay? I’m not trying to change anything. I’m not trying to replace Ian or muck up your life. I just want to get to know you, spend some time with you now and again and we’ll go from there.”

“Will I have to spend weekends with you? My friend, Bryce, he spends weekends with his Tad, he does.”

The hurt rose up again. The idea his son dreaded spending time with him wounded him to the core. He swallowed the lump in his throat, and hoping he sounded more steady than he felt, said, “Not if you don’t want to. We’ll start with little things and go from there, okay? If you don’t want to hang out with me, you don’t have to.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uhh, sure,” Fish replied, surprised. He immediately became fearful as to what exactly his son wanted to know.

"You didn't know who I was at the hospital, did you?" 

Fish suppressed a groan and decided to go with the truth. "No, I didn't. But I suspected." 

He braced himself for more questions, but instead, David asked, "What were you doing at the hospital, anyway?"

David turned the console off and dropped the controller on top of it. He reached his hand out for Fish’s and he handed it over. “Those people went mad and Mum won’t tell me why.”

“I was working.” Fish had now reached a subject that he not only didn’t want to discuss but couldn’t discuss. “We were just trying to find out why it happened.”

“Mum said you were with the police.”

Fish nodded. “Sort of. I work for the government, doing special scientific research. I can’t really talk about it though.”

“Like a spy?” David asked.

“Umm, not really, I’m a scientist. I find out how things work.”

“I like figuring out things too. One time I took the microwave apart. Mum and Tad went spare,” he said.

Fish's heart nearly stopped. David could’ve fatally electrocuted himself. His instinct was to shout at the boy, but he took a breath. He didn’t want to discourage the curiosity. _Christ this parenting shite is going to drive me stark raving mad._ “That was a very dangerous thing to do, David. You want to take something apart, you let me know and we’ll do it together, all right? If you don’t know what you’re doing, some things are very dangerous.”

David’s face went wide with glee. “You’d help me take things apart? Mum and Tad never let me take anything apart!”

“Uhh, well, they’re probably worried about you hurting yourself, but if there’s something you want to know how it works, I could help you do it safely. I don't know if your Mum told you, but I'm an engineer,” Fish said. 

“What about a toaster?”

“Umm, sure,” Fish replied. He was sure he could find one second hand somewhere, cheap. He doubt it would be functional by the time he and David were done with it. “Not your Mum and Tad’s toaster though.”

“What 'bout a mobile?”

“Uhh, sure, I can get a hold of an old one,” Fish said.

“I found one of those ancient flip phones in the bins. I’ll go get it!” David cried and then bolted out of the room with excitement.

David’s exuberance stunned him. He sat there alone, wondering just what the hell he’d gotten himself into.


	8. Chapter 8

Alicia sat back in her chair. She ripped off her comm unit and threw it onto her desk. "What a chauvanistic jerk." 

"You all right, Ali?" Ben asked, not taking his eyes off his computer screen. He was playing some sort of game. 

"Every time I have to talk to this dick over in the PM's office, he starts off by asking me where Ianto is. And after I tell him that, no douchebag, you have to talk to me because Ianto's busy, he just turns into a patronizing chauvinistic jerk off. You know, I thought Europe was supposed to be more progressive and forward thinking than the US." Frustrated, she snapped out, with the appropriate accents, "But instead of, 'You silly little thing. You go on back to that kitchen and leave this serious stuff to us men folk.' I'm getting the fancy ass version of, 'Oh, so sorry, why don't you run along and fetch us a spot of tea like a good girl and leave this to the proper gentlemen?'"

"Tossers," Ben said.

"Total fucking dicks," Alicia agreed. "Sorry." 

Ben raised an eyebrow at her. "You're not in Kansas anymore, Ali." 

She rolled her eyes and gestured at the comm unit. "I get that. You know, I didn't think you English and the Welsh got along."

"We don't," Ben said. "At the risk of betraying my fellow Englishmen, I reckon that Ianto’s at least another bloke, even though he’s a sheep shagger. You’re a bird and an American." 

"Awesome," Alicia said, sighing. 

"What were you trying to get from them anyway?" Ben asked. 

"Just doing the liaising job," she said, shrugging. "After the incident with the time terrorists, the Crown instituted new orders for Torchwood. We keep UNIT and the government properly informed of any major incidents. This going crazy thing is falls under the category of major." 

"I thought Jack said we're outside the government," Ben said. 

"We are, technically. But Torchwood was formed by the Crown. We're held accountable to the Crown, so when the Crown says tell the PM's office stuff, we tell the PM's office stuff," she replied. 

"I'm surprised they still need to know about it. I mean, there were incidents happening every day, all over the world, and then they just stopped. It's been nearly a week now," Ben said. 

"We may have shifted focus to helping the victims, but that doesn't mean we still don't have to tell the PM that," Alicia said. She then muttered, "Whole thing makes me want to toss some tea into a harbor."  More loudly, she asked, “Wha do you call the American Revolution anyway?”

Ben frowned, “What do you mean?”

“Like back home, Southerners call the Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression.”

Ben laughed. "I hate to disappoint you but we don’t call it the Great Colonial Uprising or the American Rebellion or anything else skewed like that. We call it the American Revolution the same as you lot do.”

“Well that’s a letdown,” she said. 

Ben laughed again. “They'll come round. It's just going to take time. You need to grit your teeth, dig your heels in and not give them an inch. They'll take a bloody mile." 

"I've been here for months, Ben," she said, rolling her eyes. 

"Yes, but think about how long they've been dealing with Ianto. With Jack," he pointed out. "They'll come round, you'll see." 

“Well you’d think dealing with Jack would have gotten them used to an American accent by now.” Alicia sighed and sat up. _Don't let the bastards grind you down._

Her workstation beeped and she stretched out her hand, pulling the keyboard closer to her. Since Gwen was on medical leave, Ben and Alicia were alone in the Hub. All of the alerts and notifications were routed to her workstation. After entering her passcode, she clicked the link from Heddlu Gwent. "You'd think they wouldn't leave the two new people here all by themselves.”

Ben laughed and waved at his computer. "Well, when the cat's away..."

"You play that game whether Jack and Ianto are here or not," Alicia said, laughing. She squinted at his screen. "What is it anyway?"

"Warcraft," Ben said.

"You play Warcraft?" Alicia said, rolling her eyes. She returned to the police report on her screen. 

"I do," Ben replied. "I do the boring stuff during the day-daily quests, fishing, farming herbs, and rep-that sort of thing. I raid three nights a week."

"I don't even know what you just said. Was that English?" Alicia replied as she read. 

Ben laughed. "I'll get you hooked." 

"Doubt it. I'm not much of a gamer," Alicia said, rolling her eyes. "I'm going to need to call someone in. It's another incident.”

“You’re shitting me? We haven’t had anything in a week!”

“Fuck... at a fucking school!” Alicia cried. 

Ben groaned. "Bloody hell, I thought I'd be here a little longer before I had to deal with dead children." 

"It looks like catatonia, not as if that isn't bad enough," Alicia said. She pointed at the screen. "They're being moved to University Hospital." 

She picked up her mobile telephone. "You remember if him and Jack said what they were doing today?" 

"What? Your boyfriends don't tell you? I'm surprised Ianto hasn't rearranged the schedule so the three of you have off on the same day," he asked.

Alicia gave him a shocked look. "What?" 

"Look I get you're trying to be all quiet and discrete about it, but it's kind of obvious," Ben said, rolling his eyes at her. "Ever since Andrew Darby went to do a Rip Van Winkle with the Watchers, you've had this freshly fucked smile on your face like every day of the bloody week for months.”

With a hard sigh, Alicia said, "Well?" 

"Well what?" 

"Have at it, Ben!" she said, waving her arm out to the side. "Call me a whore or a slut or a fucking nympho or whatever. Ask me all about the fucking sausage fest and being a meat in the sandwich or comment about how many fucking spit roasts I've been a part of." 

Now it was Ben's turn to look shocked. He paused his game and said, "You know, I get I can be kind of a dick, but one thing I'm not is a judgmental dick." He paused. "I know I had this bit of a crush on you in the beginning, but I'm over it, you know. I'm actually happy you're happy because you were depressed as fuck when you got here. And you shouldn't be so ashamed or embarrassed by something that's been making you so happy. You need to learn how to tell the rest of the world to sod off." 

"Like you do?" she bit back.

Ben raised an eyebrow at her. "Not fun is it? Being down here with us misfits?"

She didn't answer him, but dialed Ianto and waited for him to answer. "Ianto? Hi, yeah I'm sorry to drag you guys back in here on your day off... Yes, another incident... Uhuh... Uhuh... Okay, we'll wait here for you." She turned to Ben. "They're on their way back." 

He stood up and said, "I'm going to put the kettle on." As he walked past her, he added with a wink, "Don't worry, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who knows about your sausage fest." 

She rolled her eyes and went back to bringing up the information from University Hospital. 

Just as Ben had added a splash of milk into his tea, Jack and Ianto came in through the cogwheel door. Both men were dressed casually in jeans and t-shirts. 

"Sorry," Alicia called out. 

Jack walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, kneading them gently. "It's fine, Alicia." 

She shrugged off his touch. Ianto leaned over her shoulder and started reading the report. "When did it come in?" 

"Five minutes ago, tops," she said. 

Jack wandered towards the north stairs. Alicia assumed he was going to change. 

"Jack?" Ianto called out. 

"What's wrong, Yan?" 

"Grangetown Primary," he said, pointing at the screen. He began fumbling with his mobile. "That's David's school."

"Yan, there's got to be a couple hundred kids going to school there," Jack said. 

Ianto straighten and glared at his husband. "Yes, this is Ianto Jones, Torchwood authorization echo triple one, charlie eight, zero five. I'd like the names of the students from Grangetown Primary School admitted to University Hospital... Yes, I'll hold..." He turned to Jack and said, "Honestly, Jack, we really are that unlucky you-... Yes?... Right... Right... Have the parents all been notified?... Of course... Yes... Straight away... Thanks." 

Alicia's hand drifted to her mouth. "Oh my god." 

"David's one of the affected children," Ianto said, softly. 

Jack opened his mobile tapped at it. "I'm calling in everyone." 

Ianto nodded. He walked away with his mobile in his hand. "I'm going to ring Fish." 

Alicia said, "What can we do?" When no one answered her, she raised her voice. "Hey! What can Ben and I do?" 

“Ianto’s calling John and Will. Ben? I want you to go back over the old tech data. See if we missed anything. You, Alicia, I need you...”

Jack dropped his mobile on Alicia's desk next. He leaned over and jotted down a few numbers on a paper. He ripped the page off the pad with a flourish and handed it to Alicia. "To go down into the archive with Ianto and get these. Give him these sorting numbers." 

Jack's mobile rang and he picked it up. "John? Yeah... Hang on...” 

The rest of the conversation dissolved into the odd foreign language the two fifty first century men often used together. Alicia rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t know why you’re whispering. I can’t understand you as it is!”

She looked at the numbers, but they made no sense to her. Ianto had created the filing system from the ground up. It was specific to Torchwood. It was alpha numeric and color coded. The colors and two letter-number code referred to each type of Archive whether it be the general, oversized items, hot or cold, and so on. There were three double digit numbers, each indicating the floor, wing, and room where the item was stored. There was then another letter and number indicating the shelf and position in the room. The item itself would have a colored tag with a shape notched out of the end with the corresponding sorting number. The numbers Jack had given her didn’t make sense to Alicia. She wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were rubbish. Jack was so horrible with the filing, Ianto didn't allow him to do it. _Speak of the devil..._

Rubbing his forehead, the Welshman came over to Alicia and asked, "Where's Jack?" 

"He's talking to John. He went that way," Alicia said. Just before Ianto could walk away, she shoved the paper at him. "Wait, Jack said to look for these, but the sorting numbers don't make any sense to me." 

Ianto took the paper from her and said, "We don't use this section of the archive. It's empty." Frowning, he waved at Alicia and said, "Come along then." 

"But you said it's empty," she replied. 

"Who knows what on earth Jack has done," Ianto said. He walked briskly down the east stairs and into the Archive, passing his old office. Alicia tried her best to keep up, but Ianto was over half a foot taller than her. 

“Hey! My legs aren’t as long as yours!” she called out. 

“Sorry, cariad.” He politely held the lift door for her and hit the third level. 

“I wish you’d stop calling me that,” she muttered. It was bad enough that Ben knew she was sleeping with Jack and Ianto. The last thing she needed was for everyone else to find out. 

"I don't know why you have two letters for the area designation," she said. "We don't have that many areas." 

"We don't now. Who knows what the future holds?" he said. 

The rode down to the bottom level and stepped out. Ianto glanced at the paper and then down the hallway. "This way..." 

Alicia followed as they approached the section Jack had indicated. Ianto frowned deeply, seeing the number lock pad on the door. 

“Woah...” Alicia said. She pointed at the door. “What the actual fuck? He’s always bitching and moaning that he doesn’t understand the filing system, but he knows the sorting numbers for this room?” 

Ianto nodded. "We shouldn’t shag him for a month.”

“Okay a month is a little excessive,” she said. 

“He's been having one on me and just been being a lazy git," Ianto said, impatient. 

Alicia looked at the paper. "He hasn't given the key code. Birthdays and anniversaries are the most commonly used numbers for PINs."

"Oh if it's either of those, I'll not let him get away with forgetting them ever again," Ianto said. Unfortunately, it took Ianto several tries before he managed to get the door unlocked. 

“What was it?” she asked. 

“1941,” Ianto said. 

“What happened in 1941?” she asked. “Aside from a bunch of World War II stuff that is.”

“Jack met the Doctor for the first time,” Ianto said. He pulled the door open and leaned inside. "He tried to con the Doctor into buying what he told them was a Chula war ship."

Alicia leaned into the room, but Ianto gently eased her back into the hallway.

"Wait out in the hallway for me."

"What? Why?" she asked.

"Just do as I ask, please, cariad," he replied, craning his neck. He ran his fingers down her cheek. "If Jack's squirreled something away in here, it could be dangerous. Please." 

Alicia obeyed, reluctantly. She stepped back out into the hallway and leaned against the wall with her hands folded across her chest. 

Ianto came back out into the hallway with two pieces of equipment in his hands, likely the ones that corresponded to Jack's numbers. He handed one to Alicia. "Here. Carry this one." 

Alicia accepted the box and walked back upstairs with Ianto. They set the items down on Fish's worktable. Ianto stepped over to the nearest computer and began typing, a frown on his face.

"You found them. Great," Jack said. 

"What are they?" Alicia asked. 

"They're neural scanners," Jack replied. 

"I thought you said we didn't have anything that would help them," Alicia said, her hands on her hips. 

"There's a risk with these," Jack said.

Before Alicia could ask what sort of risk Jack was talking about, Ianto walked over and gripped his arm. He muttered, "A private word, sir?"

It was the first time Alicia had heard the honorific come out of Ianto's mouth without any affection on it. As her boyfriends walked away, tension rolling off both of them, she was positive she'd never know the details of that conversation as long as she lived. 

* * *

 

Once Ianto had pulled Jack into his old office, he said, patiently, "Jack, I know you and Mandy both have storage rooms in the Archive where you keep personal items, but this is different. Why are there artifacts stored away from the rest of the Archive?"

When Jack didn't answer him, he glared at him again. He pointed up the stairs. "I recognize those things, Jack. They're meant to be in the regular archive. I filed them myself. I just checked the cataloging. They've been removed from the database. You changed their filing on purpose. Why? Jack?" 

"Sometimes things come through that are dangerous, Ianto," Jack insisted.

Annoyed, Ianto snapped, "I know that Jack. Many of them kill me on a fairly regular basis." 

Jack walked to the office door and shut it. When he turned around, he opened his wrist strap and tapped away, activating the noise killing feature. "You know that I can identify a lot of items that come through." 

"Yeah, usually a lot more than you let on," Ianto said, nodding. "I know that, I've always known it. I don't let on I know it, because I don't want the others to know that I know. I figured you have your reasons." 

Jack nodded. "I do. All of the stuff I've moved is because at some point in the future they've been made illegal. The two scanners I had you get are used in enhanced interrogation techniques."

"Torture," Ianto translated.

"Torture... and brainwashing," Jack confirmed. 

"You want us to use those things on a ten year old boy?" Ianto shouted.

"The neural scanners are used to identify which parts of the brain can be rewired or reprogrammed or messed with. We can use it to figure out what's been done to David and the others," Jack said. 

"I take it there's a reason you didn't bring this up until someone timeline critical was affected?" Ianto asked, with annoyance. 

Jack nodded. "The scanners aren't painless and they're not meant for humans. They could end up doing more damage, but if we don't do anything-"

"David Porter will never become the Father of Interstellar Space Travel. Sod it all!" Ianto let out a growl of frustration. With his hands on his hips, he said, "How do you bloody handle all this fucking responsibility?" He threw his hand out to the side. "This is the bloody future of the entire fucking human race!" 

"You handle it one step at a time, Ianto. We can only deal with what's right in front of us," Jack said. 

"How on earth are we going to get Fish to agree to do this?" Ianto asked. "Christ, we don't just have to get him to agree. We have to get Ian and Olivia to agree as well." 

"I don't think it'll be too hard," Jack replied. 

"How can you say that, Jack? Even if we find out what's wrong with David using the scanners, there's no guarantee that we'll be able to do fuck all about it!" Ianto cried. 

"One step at a time, Yan," Jack said. 

Ianto paced back and forth. "You know it's bloody convenient you always yanking something like this out of your arse when we're up shit creek. Is there any other odd trove of futuristic items I should know about?" 

Jack shook his head. "I know it feels like I have a solution, but like you said, just because we know the why, doesn't mean we can fix it." 

"It's a step in the right direction, though," Ianto said, sighing. "I'll ring Fish and have him come in." 

"Have him bring Ian and Olivia too," Jack said. 

"What?" Ianto asked, surprised. 

"David is their son too. We're going to need their consent. They'll be more inclined to agree if they're in possession of all the facts," Jack replied. He strode towards the door. "Let me know when they get here. I need to talk to John." 

Ianto walked back upstairs to find the place deserted. Confused, but grateful for the privacy, he rang Fish. The conversation was short, and Fish was willing to do anything that could possibly help his son. When Jack arrived from the garage hallway, Ianto asked, "Jack? Where are Ben and Alicia?" 

"I sent them packing. They're going to monitor the rift, off-site, with Will. I only want those of us who know the timeline implications here," Jack said. Captain Hart was on Jack's heels. 

"Eye Candy," he said, nodding a greeting. He looked annoyed as fuck. 

"Captain." 

"Joe on his way?" he asked. 

Ianto nodded. "With Olivia and Ian." 

"Good because we need to talk about what we're going to tell them when they get here," Jack said. 

"About Torchwood or about David's importance to the timeline?" Ianto asked. 

Hart rolled his eyes. "Well, obviously we can't tell them about David's importance to the timeline, you daft twat." 

Ianto chose to ignore the insult, but Jack smacked Hart in the arm. "Hey. Easy."

"Sorry, Jack, you know how fucking much I hate it when you insist on discussing the fucking obvious. We can't tell them about David's importance to the timeline, but I doubt parents are going to be asking too many questions when we're trying to help their son." 

Patiently, Jack said, "John, you, Ianto, and I are the only people who know about David's importance to the timeline. We all need to be on the same page about what we do and don't discuss with Fish, Olivia, and Ian." Hart was about to object again, but Jack continued, "I know we never had these discussions, but you and I were Time Agents. We know how each other reacts, how we deal with timeline implications in an out-of-time situation. Ianto doesn't. We all need to be on the same page here." 

Hart rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine. I say we keep anything out of it these squidgy twenty-first century lot wouldn't like to hear, like about how the devices we're about to use on their kid was used to more effectively and efficiently torture and brainwash people in political prison camps."

"Do you think we should let them know what Torchwood does?" Ianto asked. 

"Look, Eye Candy, Torchwood is the worst fucking kept secret in this city. They're on their way into our secret base with a pair of pterodactyls flying inside, that's hidden beneath one of the largest tourist attractions in Cardiff." 

"Fair enough," Ianto said. 

"We tell them just enough. The device is from the future," Hart said. He leaned against the worktable and folded his arms over his chest. "I know my wife's explained the art of lying to you, Eye Candy. Lies of omission are easier than just making something up. If you stick to the truth, wherever possible, there's nothing you have to remember."  

Jack nodded. "We leave out the device's history. We only tell them as much about Torchwood as we need to-the Rift is where the thing came from. They don't need to know about anything else that regularly drops through."

Hart and Ianto both nodded.

"I only want us to be involved in this. We're the only ones who know about David's importance to the timeline," Jack said.

"I think we should bring everyone else in, Jack," Hart said. He held up his hand as Jack was about to object. "We don't need to tell them David's important to the future. He's important to Joe and that'll be more than enough for everyone." 

"Jack, and trust me I thought I'd never utter these words as long as I lived, John's right. We may need the others. They want to help." 

"I'll consider it," Jack said. They all paused as the light above the garage hallway went on, indicating the door had opened and closed. "They're here." 

Ianto looked down at himself. "I should've changed." 

"You look fine, Eye Candy," Hart said. "Why you always need to be in that suit is beyond me."

"Says the man who wears a red Napoleonic jacket and a bloody samurai sword everywhere," Ianto said, rolling his eyes. 

The sounds of footsteps grew louder and Fish, Henry, Olivia, and Ian appeared.

Fish blurted, "Jack? You said you could help David?" 

Ianto had never heard him sound so desperate.

"Our son, you can help him?" Ian demanded.

"Please!" Olivia cried. 

Jack raised his hands and said, "Woah, woah, we're going to try." 

Ianto stepped forward and said, "I know you're all upset. Let's all take a breath and go where we can talk. I'll go put the kettle on and make us some well sugared tea."


	9. Chapter 9

 

When Olivia had first rang to tell him about David, Fish's reaction had been disbelief and shock with a healthy dose of frantic desperation. He and Henry had dropped everything and rushed to hospital. Seeing David in that hospital bed, staring up at nothing had been the worst moment of his life. And since that horrible image had been burned into his retinas, Fish's life had become a surreal. Everything was like clocks melting down the walls. Up was down. Front was back.

Disembodied and stunned, Fish barely heard what the doctors were saying about possible autism spectrum disorder or childhood schizophrenia, bipolar catatonia, or other psychotic disorders. But Fish knew precisely what was wrong. Torchwood hadn't caught up with him, it had caught up with his son. It was worse than all the possibilities the doctors had presented them with because Fish knew there was no cure, there was no therapy or treatment. David would spend the rest of his days staring into nothing, unable to communicate with the outside world, trapped within his own body and mind-a living death. There would be no school, no university, no career. He wouldn't fall in love, or have children of his own. There would be no more laughter, smiles, or tears except those of his family. Paralyzed with grief, Fish only half heard the conversation going on around him.

"Thorazine!" Ian cried.

"We can start atypical anti-psychotics, quetiapine-"

"Absolutely not!" Ian snapped, shaking his head.

The pediatric psychiatrist held up a calming hand. “Doctor Dumont, I know this is upsetting-“

Henry stepped forward, “Upsetting? Have you the slightest comprehension at how inadequate a word you have selected for this horrific situation? Yesterday, David was a vibrant and energetic young boy, lucid and coherent! Now you are telling us that he is possibly schizophrenc?"

"Mr. Blount, please, we must all think of David. I understand not having answers isn't comforting, but I'm certain Doctor and Nurse Dumont can tell you that often medicine cannot provide answers. But we can treat. We have many drugs at our disposal..." 

Fish barely heard the next few interjections into the conversation. Henry took him by the arm and said, “Joe, I think we must explain to Olivia and Ian about Torchwood. Is this not exactly what happened last week? And is happening all over the world?”

"How is that going to help, Henry?" Fish asked. "At least... with these treatments, they have some hope. How can I rob them of that?"

"Joe, perhaps there is something we can do. John travelled backwards in time with you so you could witness David’s birth. Perhaps he can travel forward to get David the help he needs,” Henry suggested. 

Fish frowned. “Jack might say no.”

“But he might also say yes!” Henry said. He held out his hand. “I will ask him. Let me use your mobile, Joe. The charge on mine is depleted.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Fish said.

Fish walked back to the conversation and said, “Doctor, thank you. Would you mind giving us some time to talk?”

The man nodded. “I’d like to start treatment as soon as possible. Ring for the nurse when you have a decision.”

Once he was gone, Fish shut the door to the room as much as he could. He turned to Henry and said, “Activate the muffliato app please, Henry?”

Henry nodded. “What is the passcode for your answer phone, Joe? Jack has left a message.”

“It’s your birthday. The real one. Month and year,” he said. 

Henry nodded and tapped at the phone while Fish turned to his ex and her husband. “You both know I’m Torchwood.”

“Yes, you said," Ian said, nodding. "Is there something you can do for David? A specialist or perhaps pull some strings to get him to a special hospital?”

Fish shook his head. “I can, but this is more about what’s happened to David and other treatments-”

Before he could launch into his explanation, Henry exclaimed, “JOE!”

The three of them turned at the alarm in Henry’s voice. He dashed forward with Fish’s phone in his hand. “LISTEN!”

He hit the speaker button and Jack’s voice filled the room. “...happened to David. We think we might have something that can help. Call me back when you get this or just come in. You got the green light to read in your ex and her husband.”

The message stopped and Fish grabbed his coat. “Let’s go. My car’s downstairs.”

“We can’t just leave David alone!” Olivia cried. 

“Livie for fuck’s sake, my boss has something that could help!” Fish cried.  

Ian put his hand on his wife’s arm. “Olive, he’s in good hands here. I’ll leave instructions for them to hold off treatment. What if this is a real shot? What if it could make him better!” 

She shook her head, tears flying. She took David's hand and sat down. "I'm his mother. I won't leave my baby boy." 

Henry said, "Olivia, go with Joe and Ian. I shall remain with the lad." 

"No, Henry, I won't do this without you... I can't..." Fish said, desperately. 

"This boss of yours can come here," Olivia said. 

"Olive..." Ian said. He knelt down next to his wife and put his hand on her arm. "Olive... We all need to be there to make this decision. And we can't do it in this room, staring at David in this state. We need to do this with a clarity."  

Olivia sobbed and kissed David's limp hand. "Mummy will be right back, sweetheart. Mummy loves you." 

Ian squeezed David's hand. "I love you, son. We'll be right back, all right. We're going to see about getting you better."

When Ian stood, he gave Fish an embarrassed look. Fish put his hand on Ian's shoulder and squeezed. He looked the other man square in the eye and said, "He's your son, too."

He took David's hand next. "Hey kiddo. It's your father... I know I'm just getting to know you, but I'm not giving up on us or you. Ever. I..."

His voice broken and Henry put his arm around his waist.

"I love you, David," Fish whispered. He reached down, running his fingers through David's hair. 

Henry bent, kissing David's forehead. "Sweet lad, your family is with you and loves you. We'll return soon." 

Straightening, Henry gestured to the door. "I believe we should make haste."

Fish held his hand out. "Henry, let me drive. Give them the Talk.”

“I suggest we buckle ourselves in securely,” Henry said. 

When the car lurched forward, Fish turned on the siren and Henry said, "Good Lord, Joe! When did Jack install this monstrosity?" 

"When I joined Torchwood. I've just never used it," Fish said. He jerked the wheel, swerving through traffic. 

Olivia shouted, “Christ, Joe! When on earth did you learn to drive like such a lunatic!” 

“Part of my job now, Livie,” he replied. 

"Are we heading towards the bay?" Olivia asked. 

"Yes," Fish replied. "The Hub is beneath the Millennium Centre." 

Henry held onto the handle and said, loudly over the siren, “Torchwood was formed over a hundred years ago by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria to protect the British Empire against alien threats. While it’s mandate has evolved, that is still Torchwood’s primary function.”

The car descended into the underground car park and Fish drove to the special entrance. To his surprise, it was already open and waiting for them. 

“Do you work for them too?” Ian asked. 

“On occasion. There is a Rift through time and space that runs through Cardiff. I do assist Joe and his colleagues in the course of their duties, but my role is largely supportive whilst it is the job of the team,” Henry replied.

“What do you mean a rift?” Olivia asked. 

Henry continued, “It is basically a tear in space and time. I am unsure of the precise physics, but objects will fall through the rift from across all of time and space and end up here, within the city. I believe Jack knows of something within the Torchwood Archive that might help David." 

Fish parked the car and they all got out. "This way." 

When they arrived in the main Hub, Fish blurted, "Jack? You said you could help David?" 

 

"Our son, you can help him?" Ian demanded.

"Please!" Olivia cried. 

Jack raised his hands and said, "Woah, woah, we're going to try." 

Ianto stepped forward and said, "I know you're all upset. Let's all take a breath and go where we can talk. I'll go put the kettle on and make us some well sugared tea."

Once they were all seated in the Torchwood boardroom, they listened as Jack laid out the plan to use the futuristic device on David. 

"Wait a minute," Olivia said, holding out her hand. "You're telling me something fell from space and did this to David and his friends? And everyone else? If it fell here how is is affecting people around the world?"

Ianto said, "There is a rift in time and space that runs through Cardiff. Things drop through all the time. It's part of Torchwood's job to police and monitor the rift." 

"Henry's explained already," Ian said, frowning.

Jack turned to him and said, "The rift drops things from all over time and space. It can drop something from a couple solar systems away or the other side of the universe. It could be something from ten thousand years ago or something two hundred years in the future." 

"So you're saying that something that fell through this rift did this to David?" Olivia shouted. 

Hart nodded and replied, "Yes. Now we don’t know when it came through or how it’s doing what it did, but for now, that doesn’t matter." He leaned forward and added, "What does matter is that there's something else that fell through can help too." 

"This device you mentioned," Ian said. 

Hart nodded and said, "But this isn't without its risks." 

"What risks?" Fish asked. 

"You said this thing is from the future, so doesn't that mean it's better than what we have now?" Olivia asked. 

"That seems like how it should work, but that's not necessarily true," Jack replied. 

Hart said, "I get you’re from the twentieth century with an Earth and human centric view, but the future has a lot of different types of people in it. This thing isn't made for humans."

"What good does that do us if it's made for aliens?" Olivia shrieked. 

Patiently, Hart said, "Because when this scanner is from, there's no such thing as a pure one hundred percent pure human being anymore."

"What?" Ian gasped.

"In the future, people spread through three galaxies. We go forth and..." Jack shrugged.

"Dance," Fish said, rolling his eyes.

"So wait, will this thing work or not?" Olivia asked.

Hart replied, "It's not a universal scanner, but it's close enough." 

"There has to be a catch," Ian said, both hands flat on the table. 

Ianto nodded. "There is. It won't fix the problem, but it may tell us what the problem is." 

Ian frowned. He and Olivia shared a look. "But how does that help us? Uhh, I don't know your name. I'm sorry."

"Ianto." 

"But just because we know the cause doesn’t mean we have a treatment for it,” Ian said. 

"I understand that. But if it can point us in the right direction to what can be fixed, it's a start," Ianto replied. He pointed over his shoulder. "We have a whole Archive full of futuristic and alien things that've been dropping on Cardiff for going on over a century now. Twenty-first century medicine might not have something that can help, but we might." 

"But like I said, this thing isn't without risks. There’s a possibility that it could do some brain damage," Hart said.

All four parents shouted, simultaneously, "What?"

Jack held up his hand. "It's unlikely."

"And it's not going to be painless either," Hart added. 

Jack glared at him.

"What?" Hart said. He waved at David's family. "They have to know the truth, Jack."

"You could be more tactful-"

"I appreciate the candor, actually... I'm sorry I don't know your names either," Ian said.

Hart cleared his throat and said, “Captain Hart.”

"Jack." 

"What if we sedated, David? Anesthetized him?" Olivia asked. 

"He needs to be awake for this to work," Jack replied. "The device is going to map out his brain.”

"I’m guessing at least one of you knows how to work this thing?” Ian asked. 

Hart nodded and waved between him and Jack. "Jack and I are from the future. We can handle it. All we need to do is turn it on and let it work." 

Ian blinked. He pointed from Hart to Jack and back again. "Did you just... I'm sorry... Did you say you and Jack are from the future?" 

"The fifty-first century," Jack said. 

“You say that like you’re telling me you’re from Birmingham or something,” Ian said, visibly paling. 

Olivia shook her head. "This is madness. There's no such thing as time travel!" She stood and shouted, "There is no way I'm letting you use this thing on my son! You said it could cause brain damage!" 

Fish said, "Livie, we have to do something." 

Olivia rounded on him. "Don't you dare, Joe Fischer!" She waved her arm around. "The minute you walk back into our son's life, this happens to him? You tell me you're Torchwood and now our son is attacked by something that fell out of this Rift?"

"Livie-" 

"No! Don't you dare, Joe! You've brought this down on us!"

"Now wait a minute," Jack attempted.

But Olivia wasn't hearing him and continued to shout at Fish. "You know what, you're lucky I even phoned you!" 

Fish leapt to his feet and shouted, "You know what? I'm done being nice about this shite! He's my son too, Live! And what the fuck do you mean walked 'back' into his life? I never was a part of his life, because you fucking hid him from me!"

"And now it looks like it was a good thing too!" Olivia screeched.

“Oh for fuck's sake! I cannot believe it's been over a fucking decade and you still do this finger pointing nonsense! How the fuck is this any of this my fault?” Fish shouted. “David is my son!” 

She leaned over the boardroom table. "Ian is more his father-"

Henry pulled his lips back and blew, then he roared, "ENOUGH!" 

Fish turned, having never heard such a harsh tone of voice from his husband. Henry's eyes were ablaze with rage. His normal gentleness was gone. He was on his feet, glaring at Olivia. Ian protectively put an arm up in front of his wife that Henry ignored as he leaned. "If your husband has been more of a father figure to David, whose fault is that? You can look in the mirror for your answer! Do you wish to deny Joe's paternity? Because I promise you, will regret attempting to rob Joe of his rights as the boy's father! Your foul deception is at an end, you-" 

Ianto stood and said, "Your Grace, please." 

Henry straightened and took a breath, then rolled his shoulders. He looked at Ianto for a bare moment before retaking his seat. "Forgive the outburst, lad." 

Ianto remained standing and said, "I understand you're all scared for David. He's your son. I can't imagine what you are going through. But we need to stay focused. Time current medicine has done what they can. This might get us no where, but no where is where we are already." 

Olivia shook her head. "He could get better with therapy-"

Ian interrupted her, "Olive! Didn't you hear them? He isn't sick! He's been affected by some sort of alien device or technology-"

"That doesn't change anything!" Olivia shouted.

"He's not going to get better," Jack said, softly. 

Hart muttered, "And he said I needed tact." 

Ian and Olivia stared at Jack, while Fish reached out for Henry's hand. 

With a sigh, Jack stood and said, "I'm sorry, but Ian is right. David isn't sick. What's made these people violent and catatonic isn't something the twenty-first century has a treatment for. This is something alien, from the future. Torchwood doesn't maintain an entire round the clock, residential facility because people who come in contact with alien technology get better."

Ashen, Olivia sat back down and began sobbing in Ian's arms.  

Tears in his eyes, Fish turned to his colleagues and said, "Can you give us the room please, guys?" 

Henry turned in his chair as if to leave, but Fish stopped him. "Don't you dare leave. You're my husband. You've as much right to be here as I do."

Jack and Hart stood to leave, each squeezing his shoulder as they passed. Ianto did the same and said, "We'll be right outside." 

"Thanks, mate," Fish said. 

Once they were alone, Fish rotated and said, "Olivia, David is my son too. Henry is my husband. Like it or not, we're going to be involved in this decision." 

"If you think you're going to use some futuristic device on him, like he's some fucking guinea pig or lab rat you've got another thing coming, Joseph Fischer!" Olivia snapped. 

"Olive-"

"NO, IAN!" she shrieked, her voice rising. "That thing could leave him with brain damage!" 

"Olive, he's already non-responsive-"

Olivia began shouting at the top of her lungs. "It could make it worse! What if it damages the part of his brain that controls his autonomic functions? David could die! I won't let these people experiment on him for something that we don't even know will help!" 

"Olive!" Ian also began shouting. "If this thing can tell us why-"

"When in medicine does knowing the cause help anything?" Olivia snapped. 

"They have a scanner from the future. Who knows what else they have hiding in this place? Maybe something that could help him once we know what's wrong!" Ian cried. 

Olivia rounded at her husband. "I can't believe you're on his side! I thought we were a team! I'm your wife!" 

Fish rolled his eyes, remembering every single argument he and Olivia had ever had. It seems his ex-fiance hadn't changed much. He said, "Olivia, this isn't about sides. It's about what's best for David." 

She rounded on him. "I know what's best for my own son! I'm a nurse!" 

"He's my son too, Livie!" Fish snapped, rising. 

Henry grabbed his arm. "Joe..." 

When Fish was back in his seat, Henry said, "Olivia, Joe is David's father. He has a right to be part of decisions regarding his medical care."

Olivia shook her head. "I don't have to listen to you or any of this!" 

"Olive!" 

"No, Ian! I won't sit her and listen to him tell me what to do with my son! I'm a good mother! I am not going to let all of you gang up on me!" Olivia snapped. She stood and started to storm out of the room.

Fish remembered this from many arguments he and Olivia had had over the years. He said, calmly, "No one is attacking you here, Olivia. This isn't about sides, this is about helping David."

When Olivia kept walking towards the boardroom door, Fish shouted. "Olivia! Olivia, Please! What's made David sick is alien! There's nothing human medicine can do for him!"

Ian stood and said, "I agree with them, Olive! Please!"

Olivia whirled and screeched at the men, "I won't listen to this nonsense! There's no such thing as aliens! There is no such thing as rifts in time and space! There is no such thing as time travel!"

At that moment, a loud bang rang out from behind Olivia. She turned and let out an ear piercing scream and scrambled backwards at the sight of the dinosaur. It squawked gently, tilting its head. 

"That's Hywel. He's the sensitive sort of pterodactyl and doesn't like when people shout," Fish said. He walked over to the sideboard and opened a drawer. He handed his ex a bar of dark chocolate. "Give him this." 

She stared at it, shocked. Fish carefully unwrapped the bar and held it out to Olivia. "He likes dark chocolate."

As the pterodactyl stepped in their direction, Ian let out a frightened noise. Out of a sense of survival, Ian snatched the bar of chocolate out of Fish's hand and tossed it in the dinosaur's direction. Hywel snatched the chocolate up and began chewing. He let out a contented squawk and Ianto strode into the room, annoyed. 

"Woah, easy boy!" Ianto said. He began ferrying him out of the room. "I'm sorry, he doesn't like shouting."

Once they were gone, Fish turned to his ex and said, "You were saying about time travel, Livie? Because that was a pterodactyl."  

"You're all insane!" she shouted. 

Fish turned to his husband and said, "They're going to have to know eventually, Henry. If it's all right with you, you might as well tell them now." 

Henry sighed and stood. "I am not of this time either. I was born in 1519." 

Ian turned. "Was it this Rift they were talking about?" 

"It is a long story," was Henry's only reply. 

Olivia shook her head. Overwhelmed, she sank to the carpet. Ian pulled her into his arms. "I have loved David as if he were my own and I won't sit here while there's something that could help him," Ian said. "Olive, you can't honestly think he and his friends have suddenly developed such severe illnesses when they were healthy hours ago, falling so severely mentally ill within moments of each other? Do you really want them to start antipsychotics? Electroconvulsive therapy?"

She shook her head and clamped her hands over her ears. Ian grabbed her wrists and shook them. "Olive! Listen to me!" 

"No!" 

He shook her again. "If David were a patient and not your son, what would be going through your mind? You know it as much as I do!"

Olivia started to rock back and forth, sobbing. Ian said, gently, "You'd tell them these things vary from case to case, individual to individual. You'd go on about how everyone responds to therapy differently... but inside you'd know the truth. You'd word everything carefully. You'd tip-toe around it, but you'd know. You'd know!"

She buried her face in her hands and nodded. Ian gathered her into his arms and looked at Fish. "We're all in agreement now." 

Henry and Fish sank to the ground and together, they embraced in hope.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Fish was shaking in Henry's arms by the time Miranda was done. He'd never felt so helpless in his life. Each one of David's painful whimpers and cries had been a white hot knife in his heart. They'd all been in tears by the time the scanner had finished. Jack had advised them all to stay outside, but there was no way they were leaving David to face the pain alone, no matter what his current state. 

As Jack and Hart scrutinized the readout, supposedly trying to translate, Fish held David's hand in his. He sent up prayer after prayer. He promised God anything and everything as long as David would be okay. To Fish, this existence was worse than death. He was so young and innocent. He hadn't even started his life. There was still so much left for him to experience and discover. The special moments David had yet to live twisted Fish's heart. The stolen possibilities made his blood run both icy with grief and hot with anger.  

"What's going on, Jack?" Fish asked.

The immortal man held up a finger. "Give us a little time, Fish."  

After a few more minutes, nervously jiggling his leg, and fidgeting in his seat, he stood up and said, "I can't just sit here. I'm going to have a walk."

When Henry made to stand, Fish shook his head. "I just need a minute. I need some air."

Fish strode out of the room, trying not to make it look like he was fleeing. When he got down the hallway, he leaned against the wall and hugged his chest. A small hand touched his shoulder and he jumped back, raising his hand to her. He scrambled away and nearly fell, fighting back panic. 

Olivia shrank back and Fish said, "Sorry! I'm sorry, Livie!'

He took a deep shaky breath, backing himself into the wall. After shaking his watch, he said, "I'm sorry. I don't react well to people sneaking up on me." 

"It was more than an accident at work, wasn't it, Joe?" she said, gently.

Fish nodded. He looked up and down, ensuring they were alone. In a low voice, he said, "I was kidnapped by an alien from the future, held prisoner, and tortured." 

"Oh my God, Joe..." she gasped. 

He took a deep breath. "I'm a lot better. I couldn't leave the house for a while. I'm on medication, but I still have some nightmares and panic attacks sometimes." 

"I had no idea Torchwood was so dangerous. I thought it was just... just this thing people talking about. This whispered curse people would roll their eyes at," she said, with a sigh. 

"I've made a lot of changes. I'm only in the Hub a couple days a week now. I don't go into the field anymore," he said. He rested his head against the wall. "You were always a rock with your patients and their families."

"This is different," she replied. "When David was two, I turned my back for a second-"

"No good story involving a kid ever starts out like that," Fish muttered.

"No, it doesn't. I hadn't latched the gate properly. He tumbled down an entire flight of stairs. I was a wreck." She paused and said, "It's how I met Ian." She rubbed her own arms and said, "There've been so many things, little things like stitches or some bad viruses, but this..."

Fish pulled Olivia into his arms. "I'm supposed to protect him, Livie. That's what I'm supposed to do at Torchwood-keep things like this away from people."

"It's not your fault, Joe. None of this is anyone's fault," she said. "And I'm sorry I said it was. I was afraid and angry." 

After a few minutes she said, "It's all my fault."

"Livie-"

"Not David being sick, but everything... everything else," she said, sighing. "I was hurtful earlier and I'm so very sorry, Joe."

"We always did take things out on each other," Fish said, shaking his head.

"That we did." Olivia nodded. "You all hit a nerve. You know how my Mum can be."

Fish nodded. His almost mother-in-law was a good woman, but could be controlling and judgmental. Olivia never responded well to it.

"After my post-partum depression, I moved back in with them. When I got better and moved out, Mum and Tad tried to get custody of David," she said, quietly.

"Shit, I'm sorry, Livie," he said.

"I was standing on my own, I was. There was no need for them to take it that far. I didn't talk to them for a long time." She sighed. "When people say things about David, when I think it's about what I should or shouldn't do, it's a nerve."

Fish nodded. "I understand, Livie. I'm sorry if it came out that way."

"He's your son too." She leaned, looking down the hallway. "Throwing you away was one of the two biggest mistakes of my life. Not telling you about David being the other." Pausing, she said, "I thought I was doing the right thing, I did. I knew you didn't want children. I didn't want to ruin your life too. I'm was positive I was the one who'd cocked it up, because the birth control was all on my end. Couple weeks went by and I missed you so much. I was so sick and so miserable and so alone. I didn't want to be a mother. I thought if I wasn't pregnant anymore that it would solve everything."

"Why didn't you just talk to me, Olivia?" he asked, gently.

"It was my mistake, I needed to live with the consequences," she said.

Fish jerked his head towards David's hospital room. "It wasn't exactly an immaculate conception. It took both of us." He let out a scoff. "I've actually been trying to pin down the exact... uhh... incident."

"It was a Tuesday," she said, smirking.

"How the bloody hell do you know that?" he asked.

"You'd gone to that green energy conference in Japan, remember? You were upset I wouldn't go with you, but I didn't want to be left on my own in a country where I couldn't even say hello," she said.

"I came back that Tuesday," he replied. "What was that night? Twice? Three times?"

"Three," she replied, smirking. "And a half."

Fish chuckled. "I called in sick the next day too. Told Mark it was jet lag."

Olivia nodded, smirking.

"How do you know it was then?" Fish asked, skeptical.

"The timing was right. Do you remember I was all on about waiting for the wedding night?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, that's right! You were all upset I was going too because there was so much we needed to do for the wedding," Fish said with a laugh. "You said we should wait a few months and then the wedding night would be amazing. All I kept thinking was that it wouldn't be amazing, it'd be really short."

Olivia let out laugh and then coughed. "It's the only time that makes sense."

They fell into an awkward silence. After a few moments, Fish asked, cautiously, "Did you miss your pills?"

She shook her head. "Not a one. Same time, every day. David is the zero point one percent."

Another awkward silence fell for a few minutes. Fish said, "You've done a great job with him, Livie. He's a good kid."

Olivia shrugged. "I haven't done anything, Joe. One of the first things you learn as a parent is that everything they are is already there. You can't mold. You can only guide."

"You don't give yourself enough credit, Livie. You never have. You've done really well with him," Fish said, sighing.

Quietly, she said, "We should've done it together. I saw you with him when he was taking apart that mobile telephone. It's all he could talk about since then, how his father helped him take something apart." She paused and said, "We used to be such a good team."

Fish smiled and said, "We were."

"We need to be a team again and I don't know how to do that." She cleared her throat and looked down at her feet. "I'd like for us all to start seeing a family counselor, Henry too if he's willing."

"I think that's a good idea. If you don't mind, Livie, I'd like to talk to my counselor to make a recommendation. There's a lot of classified stuff about my job that I can't just discuss with just anyone. And with Henry..." 

She let out a small laugh. "You married a man from the sixteenth century. I'd love to hear the whole story there." 

Fish smiled and said, "Oh it's a good one. I'm sure Henry won't have a problem with seeing a counselor. He's come to a few of my sessions."

Olivia smiled softly. "I like your husband. Though he doesn't seem to like me much."

"It's not that, Livie. Henry's just protective of me," Fish said. He banged his head lightly against the wall a few times. "What the fuck is taking them so fucking long? I can't take this shit anymore." 

Olivia slid her arm around Fish's waist and let him pull her into his arms. He kissed the top of her head. They stood there like that for a long time, until Henry leaned out of the hospital room. He blinked a few times. Fish stood, dropping his arms from around his ex. The look on his husband's face contained jealousy, something Fish had never seen from him before. _You weren't doing anything wrong._  

"Jack believes he has an accurate translation," Henry said, then immediately went back into the room.

Olivia and Fish rushed back to David's bedside, shutting the door behind them.

"Oh good, there you two are," Hart said. "I think we've pinned it down."

Jack said, "David has had information uploaded into his brain."

Ian and Olivia both wore frowns of confusion.

Fish said, "This isn't the fucking Matrix, Jack."

Hart said, "Actually, that a good analogy, Joe, because that's exactly what it is."

At Ian and Olivia's confused expressions, Jack added, "We're not all living in a virtual reality world, that's not what he means. There are several species in the future who use technology to upload information directly into the brain for a quick learning experience."

"Well, that would've made medical school a lot easier," Ian said with nervous humor.

"Not really," Hart said. "It doesn't work well and eventually the information fades."

"So David will get better with time?" Olivia asked.

Hart shook his head. "No, he won't."

"But you said the information fades," Olivia said, confused.

"The information doesn't fade, access to it does. You remember everything, you just can't access those memories. The technology was never widely used with humans because of the way memory works with us. The information would be uploaded, but eventually it'd lose its usefulness." He waved at David. "And it did this too much." 

Hart said, "And that brings us to what's gone wrong here. It's sort of like a compatibility issue." He gestured at David's immobile form. "Think of it like software incompatibility. It's uploaded information into his brain that his brain can't process, so it's short circuiting."

"So what do we do now?" Ian asked. 

Ianto and Jack exchanged looks. "There's nothing in the Archive that can help David-"

"So we did this to him for nothing?" Olivia snapped.

Hart said, opening his vortex manipulator. "No, we didn't. I have a pretty good idea when and where this technology came from. Only a handful of species do this sort of thing because it's bloody tricky." He gestured at David. "And you can see why."

The began tapping into his vortex manipulator. "I take a quick trip and come back with what we need."

Ian pointed at Hart and asked, "A quick trip where?"

"The future," Hart replied as he started tapping.

"You say that like you're just nipping out to the shoppes!" Ian cried.

Hart shrugged. "It's all a matter of perspective." He gestured at Henry. "In his time, traveling from here to New York was complicated. Now you lot just hop on an air machine. I shouldn't be gone long." 

"Do you need help?" Jack asked.

"If you want to come along, you can, but it should be an easy smash and grab type job," Hart replied. He winked at Jack. "Just like the old days."

"You're going to steal something?" Ian asked.

After Hart nodded, Ian and his wife shared a look. "What if you get caught?"

Hart and Jack both let out a small chuckle. Jack said, "We won't get caught."

"You make it sound like you used to do this sort of thing a lot," Olivia said.

"We did," Hart and Jack said simultaneously, chuckling.

Olivia and Ian shared a nervous look and they both shouted when Jack and Hart disappeared with a flash of light and a snapping sound.

Olivia turned and said, "What on earth have you gotten yourself mixed up in, Joe?"

Fish rolled his eyes. "I know how it looks, Livie, but don't take everything at face value."

His ex waved at where Hart and Jack had been a moment ago. "Thieves?"

Ianto began packing away the futuristic scanner and said, "Creative inventory management." 

Olivia and Ian both shared odd looks. She muttered, "I've had about as much weird as I can take today." She asked, "How long do you think they will be?"

"Time travel makes that irrelevant," Henry said, shrugging. "It could take them a month to steal what they require, but they may travel backwards through time so that it will appear as if they never left, or they could even arrive before they left."  

Ian let out a bemused snort, "This bloke from the sixteenth century has a better grip on this than I do." 

He paused and looked Henry up and down. "Being tossed into the twenty-first century must've been something for you. I mean, you're from the sixteenth century and now you've got a smart phone." He paused. "Sorry, that was rude of me. I'm just nervously babbling."

Henry turned to both Ian and Olivia and said, "As I will be a part of David's life, I do believe it is important for you both to know the truth of the matter, but I also believe there is a limit to the amount of strange and unusual one should absorb in a forty eight hour period, so I shall reserve the story for another day."

Olivia laughed. "Two people from the future just vanished into thin air to travel through time to steal a device that will help my son who's been infected with an alien data upload. You were born in the sixteenth century and my ex has dinosaurs flying around your workplace. How much stranger can all this get?"

Fish said, "Be careful tempting fate with a phrase like that, Livie."

Despite what Henry had said regarding the idiosyncrasies of time travel, a few hours later, Jack and Hart still hadn't returned. Ianto was deeply concerned for everyone in the room. Fish was clearly on the edge of collapse, pacing the room with his arms hugging his middle. Olivia was standing against the wall, chewing at her fingers. When Fish passed his ex, she would run her fingers down his arm or rub his back. Ian had David's hand in both of his, his forehead on the edge of the hospital bed. Henry was sitting in a chair in the corner, with a rosary clasped in one hand, his eyes closed and his head bowed. 

Ianto was beginning to feel uneasy as well. He couldn't imagine what was taking them so long. With Hart's track record of inaccuracy, he hoped Jack hadn't let him program the manipulator, but was confident his husband wouldn't do something so foolish. He leaned against the window and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Ianto opened his eyes when he felt a hand on his arm. 

"I'm sure Jack is all right," Henry said, giving him a gentle smile. 

Ianto returned it and nodded. "Doesn't mean I don't still worry."

Even though he switched to Latin, he still lowered his voice and asked, "Have you told them the truth?" 

Henry shook his head. "They know when I am from, but not the rest. Now is not the time." 

Ianto watched Fish and Olivia interact for a moment. "Have you started to feel like our immortality and the Game has become one of the worst kept secrets?" 

"It has begun to feel that way, yes," Henry replied. His gaze fell onto David. "The boy will notice one day, too. He's most astute. Not to disparage my husband, but I believe David's intellect exceeds his by a considerable amount." 

"That's saying something. How old was Tom when you told him?" Ianto asked. 

"Sixteen," Henry said. "In retrospect, I believe I told him too early. It was not an easy conversation. Especially since demonstration is the easiest means of explanation."

Ianto winced. "Jack and I haven't talked to him or Alice in a few weeks." 

"I spoke with Tom only a few days ago. After obtaining Joe's permission, I wanted to inform him of his step-brother."

With the seriousness in the room, Ianto had to suppress laughter. Immortality certain made for an unusual family tree. "How'd he take that?" 

"Quite well. He offered to be present and to offer support for David after we explain things to him. I believe Alice's pregnancy has changed his perspectives," Henry replied. 

"Alice's... wait... what?" Ianto gasped. Not thinking, he'd spoken in English. 

Henry looked up at Ianto in alarm, and also lapsed into the same. "Alice hasn't told Jack she is expecting?" 

Ianto's eyes were wide. "Not a word!" 

"Oh dear," Henry said, apologetic. "I'm very sorry I am the one to break the news in such a way. I would've thought Alice would inform her father immediately. Thomas told me some time ago, the moment he knew I was to be a grandfather. The pregnancy was obviously not planned. Thomas is apprehensive, but over the moon."

"Well I won't be telling Jack. That's not a pot of shite I want to stir," Ianto said. 

With the conversation turning to English, they had inadvertently drawn attention to themselves. Ian turned to his wife and said, exasperated, "You really had to ask how much stranger it could get, Olive? The next thing you should do is break the cardinal rule of medicine and say that it's very quiet around here!"

On cue, Ianto's mobile rang. He took it out of his pocket and checked the caller ID. "Alicia?"

She was shouting so loudly, he was positive everyone in the room could hear her. "Ianto! Thank god! None of you are on comms!"

In the background, he could hear the sound of shouting and sirens. She was inside an ambulance. His stomach lurched. 

"What's wrong? Are you all right?"

Shouting into the phone over the siren, she said, "The shit's hit the fan! John's been shot! It doesn't look good! Miranda's out on an alert, but I need you to meet me in the ambulance bay!" 

IHe tapped the speaker button and asked, "What's his condition?"

Alicia's shouting voice filled the room, "Multiple GSWs! Right shoulder, upper right chest, and upper right belly. I gave them the information about his blood pressure and his heart rate but don't think they believed me!"

"Oh my God," Olivia gasped as she covered her mouth with both her hands. 

Ian stood and said, "What information do you need me to pass on?" 

Ianto turned to him and said, "Normal body temperature is thirty eight. His cardiomegaly and splenomegaly are normal and so are the structural differences to his liver. He's got significant bradycardia, normal resting heart rate is thirty, and hypotension, normal blood pressure is sixty over forty." 

Ian absorbed the unusual information and then fled the room. 

"That's barely compatible with life!" Olivia cried. 

"Captain Hart is not entirely human," Ianto said. He turned his attention back to his phone. "Alicia? Doctor Dumont will meet you in the A&E. What else? You're on speaker." 

"Jack's in a holding pattern!" Alicia shouted. It was the standard code phrase they used in mixed company when one of the immortals was dead and waiting to revive. "I left him back at the Hub with Ben!"

Ianto flicked his eyes up to Ian and Olivia. A loud crash and thud in the ambulance muffled what Alicia said next.

"What was that Alicia?"

"I have the device in case Joe can figure it out, but I think we're going to have to wait for Jack to use it! He's maybe at level one or one point five!" she shouted.

Ianto mentally noted that second coded phrase, meaning Jack would revive in approximately an hour or hour and a half. Alicia was still learning the various levels of immortal revival, the estimate might not be accurate.

"Don't worry about that now. I'm coming down to meet you," he said.

After ringing off, Ianto said, "Excuse me, please."

Then he darted down the hallway and down the stairs. When he came out, Alicia was standing in front of the lift, waiting, with a box in her arms. Ianto didn't care about it. He took it from her, dropped it onto a chair, then gave Alicia his full attention, pulling her into his arms.

"Are you all right?"

She slipped her arms underneath his suit jacket and nodded against his chest. "I'm sorry I had to leave him. I didn't want to."

"You did the right thing, cariad," Ianto said, softly. He smoothed down her hair, brushing it away from her face. "Shh, it's all right. I've got you."

She nodded and obeyed, nuzzling her face into his shirt. Ianto didn't care there would probably be make-up smudges. He waited until the trembling had stopped before he asked, "What happened to him?" 

She pulled back a little. "It's the same as John. Multiple bullets to the chest, but Jack took one to the neck."

She waved at the box, and Ianto got his first good look at it. To his surprise, it was a simple, unremarkable cardboard box. The only thing that marked it as alien was the odd symbol stamped on each side with the alien lettering beneath.

She said, "I can't believe there aren't just ray guns in the future."

"There are, but it depends on when and where you are," Ianto answered. "How many to the chest?"

"I'm sorry, I was so focused on John, I didn't count. I think there were at least three," she said, blinking back more tears.

"Hush, cariad," he said, kissing her head. "He'll be back."

"I know, I just... that dead look in his eyes. I hate it," she said. She buried her face in his chest. "With both of you."

Ianto pulled her in, wrapping his arm around her neck and resting his lips against her hair. After a few minutes, he tilted her head up, kissing her gently. Just as they'd settled into the reassuring kiss, the lift behind them opened.

Fish stepped out and said, "Ianto, there you are. Did Alicia... Oh."

The two of them broke their embrace and Alicia's eyes widened. Fish and Alicia immediately blushed, and Alicia extracted herself from Ianto's arms.  

Unable to meet Fish's gaze, she quickly said, "I'm going to see if I can get an update on John's condition."

Once she was gone, Fish turned to Ianto and said, "Sorry."

Until now, their triad had been a secret from the rest of the team. Ianto cleared his throat and said, "I'd appreciate it if you kept this to yourself, Fish. Alicia's shy about it."

Fish blinked, then shook his head slightly as if to clear the shock. He nodded and tapped the side of his nose. "No worries, mate." He cleared his throat and took the box from Ianto. "This it then?"

"Yes, you can take a look if you want, but I think we should wait for Jack," he said.

Fish nodded. "How long do you reckon he'll be?"

"Alicia said a gun shot wound to the neck along with multiples to the chest. I would think maybe a half hour?" he said. 

"I think you might want to refine that estimate," Fish said, nodding towards the doorway.

Jack was walking towards them, hand in hand with Alicia. Fish gave her a reassuring smile and a wink, then turned towards the lift. He hit the button with his elbow and turned away from the three of them whilst he waited, giving them a measure of privacy.

Ianto pulled Jack in for a quick kiss. "You all right, cariad?"

"I'm fine, Yan," he said. With caution, he asked, "Alicia said they're trying to stabilize John now. We got into the facility easy enough, but we triggered an alarm trying to disable the temporal locator on the device. Security came running."

Ianto put his arm around Jack's neck. "You both got out. John will pull through. He's strong."

When he lifted his head, he saw Ian walking towards them. Ianto asked, "Doctor Dumont? How's John?"

He said, "He's in theatre now. The bullet nicked his subclavian artery and he's lost a lot of blood. They've transfused him and stabilized him as much as they can. The surgeon is a friend. He's going to text me when he's out." 

Ianto said, "We should let Mandy know." 

Alicia said, "I already did. She'll be here the minute she's done with the artifact retrieval she's on now with Ben."  

After giving her a peck on the cheek, Jack turned to Fish and Ian, and said, "Let's get your son better."

"You know how to use this thing?" Fish asked.

Jack nodded and tapped the vortex manipulator. "Downloaded the manual."

Ian turned to Fish and said, "Tell me he's joking."

Fish rolled his eyes. "I never know whether or not to take him seriously when he says shite like that." 

It took them only a few minutes to get back to David's room. Jack took the device out of the box. Ianto wasn't surprised the thing looked like a helmet.

Jack turned to Fish and said, "Raise the top of the bed. I need him sitting up."

While Fish worked the bed controls, Olivia asked, "What's it going to do?"

Jack turned the device upside down and pointed at the metal spikes inside. "These will press into David's scalp. It'll map his brain, find the foreign data and remove it."

"Is it going to hurt him?" she asked.

Jack shook his head, tapping at his vortex manipulator. "It shouldn't. But just so you know, it can't absolutely remove everything and I can't make any predictions about what the bits that are left behind will do to him."

He squinted at the readout and frowned.

"What?" Fish asked. "What's wrong?"

Jack shook his head. "Nothing, it's just giving me information about the data file. It's a book."

"A book? What about?" Ian asked. "It better not be some trashy novel!"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jack chuckled then shrugged. "It's just a book."

With Fish's help, he got the device attached to David's head. He hit a button on his manipulator and stared at the screen. "It'll take a few minutes. It's just doing a preliminary scan."

Alicia put her hand on Jack's arm and asked, "Jack, could this device help Lexi?"

"Who's Lexi?" Olivia asked.

"My sister."

His husband frowned. "It's a good thought, but I don't think so. What happened to Lexi is different. Her memories were rearranged, new memories were implanted, and memory connections were scrambled. Plus she has physical brain damage. I mean, it might be worth a shot, but I don't want to give you false hope." 

Disappointed, Ianto nodded. When the device beeped, he said, "That was quick."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "It's just the initial scan finishing. Now it's identifying where the information is."

Ian leaned over David. His eyes were flicking rapidly all over, as if he were watching some imaginary ball flying around the room. "Why are his eyes moving like that?"

"It's probably a side effect of the device," Jack said, shrugging. "Like when you answer a question, your eyes move up and to the right or left, mimicking what your brain is doing-accessing the appropriate information."

There was another beep and Jack began to examine the read out. He tapped a few times on his vortex manipulator, his brow furrowed in concentration. Several times, he would lean to the device, swiping his finger along a piece of glass on one side, then check the vortex manipulator again.

"You guys ready?" Jack said. He waited, patiently, as Olivia, Ian, Fish, and Henry all nodded.

With a tap of his finger, Jack activated the device. "Now it's going to start removing the information."

"That won't hurt David, will it?" Olivia asked.

Jack shook his head. "It shouldn't. When this technology first came out, it spread. It was the latest new thing, but not everything works for everyone." He gestured at David. "It's like medicines. Some people can take penicillin and be fine. Other people will have a deadly allergic reaction. Technology can be the same way. Some people upload information and they're fine. Other people end up like this. So the technology to pull the information out is readily available, easy to use, and effective. It might take a couple days for any outward signs of-"

"Mum?" David croaked.

"Woah! Hold him still!" Jack said as David stirred. 

"Mum? Tad?" he repeated.

"David! I'm right here!" Olivia said, taking his hand. "Hold still, sweetheart!"

The next words that came out of David's mouth were unintelligible, but Ianto recognized the language immediately as Ekumen. He had no idea what David was saying, but Jack clearly did. He made a low, amused, "Huh."

Ianto hissed, in a low voice,  "Jack, time and a place!"

When the device beeped, Jack checked the readout and hit the appropriate buttons. "Hang on a sec, buddy, I'll have you out of this in a second."

He took the device and lifted it off David's head. When he stepped away, everyone else swarmed David's bed.

The boy blinked, looking around. "What where happened am I?"

Olivia gave Jack a look.

"He might need to adjust still. Remember, we've done a lot of messing around in his mind," Jack replied.

"You had an accident, David. You're in hospital, but you're going to be fine," she said. "Just lay back and rest."

"Mum can I want go to home now?" he asked.  "I want to go home!"

Fish took David's other hand. "Soon, David. Go on, kiddo, rest up." 

"I feel fine, Dad! I want to go home," he cried. "I don't want to be a father!"

Olivia and Fish exchanged strange looks. "David? You've just had an accident. You're going to be fine."

David blinked a few times, then pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Ianto couldn't believe how much the boy resembled Fish in that moment. An Ekumen sentence spilled from his mouth and when David looked up he asked, "What does it mean?"

Jack said, "Who wrote Beethoven's fifth."

Ian looked nervous and took David's hand. "It's going to be all right, son."

Instead of continuing to answer David's questions, Olivia climbed into the bed with him, gathering him in her arms. "It's all right, baby. It's all right. Shh... Mummy's here. You rest..."

Fish blinked back tears and said, "They want to watch you overnight. Maybe you can go home tomorrow." 

Olivia and Ian, Fish and Henry all looked at David with tears in their eyes. David shrugged and said, "But I'm not tired. What's for eating?" 

Despite the protest, the young boy leaned back and closed his eyes. He was asleep in Olivia's arms in moments.

Ian held his hand out to Jack and said, "Thank you."

Jack smiled and nodded. "It's good to get a win for once." 

Ian nodded and said, "I can't imagine that happens often."

Fish sniffled, gripping David's hand. Tearfully, he said, "No, it doesn't."

"Well, let's win today. I'll show you to the other rooms," Ian said. 

Jack's smile immediately faded. "I can't do that, Ian. I'm sorry." 

"What?" Ian asked, shocked. 

"What?" Olivia cried.

Henry also leapt up and said, "What?"

"This piece of technology is from the future. We can't use it on everyone," Jack said. 

Ian and Olivia shared open mouthed looks of shock, anger, and disbelief. Olivia pointed at the hallway, "Are you seriously saying that you won't help those other children?"

Ianto couldn't look at any of them. He said, softly, "We can't."

"Those are David's closest friends!" Olivia said as loudly as she dared. "My colleagues!"

Jack held up his hand and said, "It's complicated."

"What's complicated about it? They're people!" Ian pointed at the device. "That thing can cure them!" 

"I'm sorry, I can't-"

"You mean you won't!" Olivia shouted. She pointed at the hallway. "How can I look those parents in the face? You helped our son but you won't help theirs? What is wrong with you?"

As he stared at the door, Ianto said, "We didn't help your son. He miraculously and spontaneously recovered."

Olivia threw her arms around David and began to cry. Ian was more than eight inches shorter than Jack, but he strode up to the taller man and shoved him against the wall. He dug his forearm into Jack's chest.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled. "They're children!"

Though Ian had him pinned against a wall, Jack was the one in control. With authority, he said, "There's nothing I can do."

"Would you have even helped David at all if he wasn't Joe's son?" Olivia asked. 

Jack pushed Ian aside, and said, "Does it matter? You have your son back."

Olivia shook her head, tears streaming down her face, she clung to David. She said, "You're a monster."


	11. Chapter 11

With the template for the information in their possession, Torchwood was able to craft a computer virus that would spread across the globe, wiping out all of the imprints of the book and preventing it from hurting anyone else. Despite combing the rift backlog, and scouring the CCTV footage, the team wasn't able to determine when the book came through. They also couldn't determine how it had implanted itself onto time current technology. They also had no idea how it had managed to upload itself onto people with that time current technology. And none of this was what the Crown, Downing Street, or UNIT wanted to hear.

There'd been explanations to give and Jack had dragged Fish to London with him. Thankfully, the meetings had been spread out, but Fish wasn't too keen on being away from David. Then, when the upload victims started dying, one by one, over the next few weeks, Fish decided he needed another break. He’d been Torchwood long enough to know exactly what had happened to those victims. It would be a while before he'd be able to stand being in the same room as Jack and Miranda, let alone look at them without hatred and loathing.

When he’d requested the leave, he’d been blunt with Jack, demanding to know if his son was next. Fish was reasonably sure there was no way Jack would’ve cured David only to allow him to become a victim of the sanitizing protocols, but he wanted to look Jack in the eye when he asked. Jack had assured him that his son was safe and Fish believed him. 

The time off gave Fish plenty of time to be there for David. There were still lingering motor, cognitive, and speech difficulties left by the upload, but David was improving by leaps and bounds every day. His therapists were confident that in a few weeks time, David would be back to himself. Despite the physical and emotional trauma, David was coping remarkably well. Fish marveled at his son's resilience. 

Since Fish and Henry’s loft was close to David’s therapists, David had been spending a lot of time with them over the past month. Fish and Henry would frequently pick David up from school to take him to his appointments. Then, they would return to the loft so father and son could disassemble something together. Henry had watched with fascination and laughter as Fish and David had taken apart a myriad of objects. The most recent casualty had been a blender. In addition to spending frequent afternoons and occasional evenings with them, there were also frequent phone calls. 

"Yeah, sure, David..." Fish said into his mobile. "Uhuh... Uhuh... Yeah we had a great time too, kiddo..."

He accepted the beer bottle from Henry and his husband sat down next to him.

"No, Henry's right here... Yeah, I'll tell him..." He turned to his husband and said, "David says hi."

"Tell him I say hello too," Henry said, smiling.

"Yeah, Henry says hi too... Uhuh... Well, Henry and I were wondering if when you're here next that maybe you'd like to scope out the guest room and the office, see if there was one you'd like better... No, no, I didn't say that, David. You don't have to, but maybe, someday, if you'd like, the room'll be there for you... Well, you might not need a bedroom, but right now it's more that Henry and I want you to be able to have your own space when you're here if you want..." Fish said. "Henry and I would love to have you here to stay for a bit sometimes but only if it's something you want... Sure you can ask your Mum and Tad... Uhuh... Of course... Love you too, kiddo. Bye."

Fish set the phone down. "He's going to ask Livie and Ian if they're okay with overnights."

"I thought you spoke with them already," Henry said. 

"I did, but David doesn't know that. I didn't want Livie to think that I was just springing this on them," Fish replied. He took a deep breath. 

"I thank God he is going to be all right," Henry said. 

Fish scrubbed at his face. "Christ, I can't even describe how all this felt, Henry. It was worse than anything that happened on that ship. Or ever in my entire fucking life."

Henry nodded. "When Tom was a boy, he'd been out riding his bike and was struck by a car."

"Holy shit, you never told me that," Fish said.

"It was a slow moving vehicle. Thomas lost a few teeth and sustained a broken wrist, but when I received the news, it was as if the world had spiraled out of control. One of the greatest difficulties as a parent is the control of our anxiety and worry. Too often, when Tom was younger, I placed the burden of alleviating that worry upon his shoulders. Parents instinctively look at the world as a threat to our children. And it does not lessen as our children age. Though my son is an adult, living his own life, I still worry about him."

"Tom must've made you go spare when he told you he wanted to be a police officer," Fish said.

Henry nodded. "He did not tell me until he had applied and been accepted at the police academy. I did not approve in the slightest, and loudly expressed that displeasure. But he was not to be dissuaded. I know he received the best training and he was a skilled officer, but that did nothing to improve my worry."

Fish nodded. He stretched out his legs in front of him. The silence that descended was awkward. Henry broke it first. "I believe that now the situation has eased, there is much you and I should discuss."

Fish sighed and said, "You read my mind."

After another short, awkward silence, Fish added, "My position hasn't changed."

Henry opened his mouth but Fish held up his hand. "Sorry, I'm not done."

"Forgive me. Go ahead, Joe."

"I know how all this seems, Henry. I'm a father now and I should want to be around as long as possible for David, that's a valid point. But my job has almost nothing to do with my life expectancy now. Yeah, Torchwood is dangerous, but I'm not in the field anymore and I'm only at the Hub a couple days a week. There are eight of us on the team now. Three are immortal. My chances of dying on the job have dropped to almost nothing. I understood when we first met why my job upset you so much. Back then, my chances of never seeing fifty were pretty high. And for a long time, I never understood why this problem with you was growing while the danger at work was shrinking."

Henry was silent for a few minutes before he answered. "When the threat was so high, you and the others were cautious and vigilant. Now that such threats have passed, I worry that such watchfulness shall relax and that you or the others will be caught unaware."

Fish nodded. "All right, that's a fair point, but that's not the case, at all. Everyone is just as protective as they were before. The Warder's Orders haven't relaxed. In fact, the immortals on the team are even more protective of us now than they were before." Fish sat back, shifting to face him more. "I'm not exaggerating, Henry, when I tell you that I have literally spent every single day trying to figure out how I can make this better because A, I don't want you to worry, and B, because it's making me so fucking miserable." He held up his hand to hold off the apology he knew was coming. "And I know you're sorry. I get that. But we've been having this bloody argument for our entire relationship. I've made compromises, from day one. The only thing left is for me to leave the team, and I won't do that, Henry."

When Henry's jaw tightened, Fish said, "And that right there is the problem. I know you'd never ask me to leave flat out, but every single passive fucking aggressive expression is screaming at me to do it. That fucking accusation in your eyes? It twists a knife in my heart every time and it makes me feel like shit and that's not right." Fish sighed again and said, "I didn't want to admit this, because I didn't want to even bring it into the realm of possibility. If I knew that it would make all this better, I'd leave Torchwood, in a heartbeat. But I know, for a fact, that it won't."

Henry's eyes lit up. "Joe-"

"No, Henry. I know it won't, because when we were on the other side of the world, it didn't make it better," Fish said, pointing towards the window. "You wouldn't talk to me the rest of the night after I had that fugu in Osaka." 

Henry's eyes flicked down to the sofa cushion between them, and at that moment, Fish knew he had won the argument. 

"The fish is poisonous, Joe," he said, feebly. 

"There hasn't been an incident of poisoning in a restaurant in decades," Fish said, just as he had that night. "And you've just proven my point. Right now, Torchwood is your excuse. The problem isn't my job. It isn't high risk behavior. The problem is that, Torchwood or no Torchwood, I'm going to die one day and you're not. When I die, you're going to be left here, without me." 

The profound pain that crossed his husband's face was like a knife in Fish's heart. Fish took a deep breath to try to steady his voice, but it still shook. "I've got one life. And I'll not spend it being punished for the fact that I am going to die. You're the love of my life, Henry. I want to spend this one life I have with you, but this is my line in the sand." He paused because he couldn't believe he was finally going to say this aloud. "I know you've tried, but this is getting worse, not better. And I cannot stay in this marriage if you keep doing this to me." 

Henry sat there, his eyes closed. Fish could see the wheels in his head turning. When he opened his eyes, he sat forward, resting his forearms on his legs. He said, softly, "I am sorry I have been causing you such distress, Joe. Until this moment, I had thought your feelings in the matter were limited to exasperation regarding my over-protectiveness. I did not understand the extent to which I was causing you pain."

"It's partially my fault too," Fish admitted. "This subject is so raw, we never talk about it. And whenever we try, we just end up having a row. So, I let it go. I kept swallowing the pain because you kept saying you were working on it. So I kept hoping it would get better." 

Henry scrubbed at his face. "But you are also correct, it is not improving." He paused and said, "I had never been able to articulate this curse until Jack said something about how immortality doesn't feel like living forever, it feels like the pain of everyone else dying around you." 

Another few seconds of silence passed and Henry lowered his head slightly. "I find as time passes, my anxieties have increased. I do greatly dread the emptiness that will encompass my life when..." He took a shaky breath. 

"You can't even say it, can you?" Fish asked, gently. 

Henry shook his head. "The concept is so hurtful to me that no, I cannot even articulate it. While I do not intend to disparage my relationship with Matthew..." He trailed off and paused. "Matthew was my first love, but you are my true love. The loss of something so profound paralyzes me, but I do understand that day will come. I have accepted its inevitability." 

"Then I don't understand why this is going on," Fish said, frustrated. 

"Just because one knows something will happen, does not remove the anxiety caused by its eventuality," Henry said. He dropped his hands and sat back on the sofa. "And that dread is not the only source of my anxiety. It is more complex." 

After taking another breath, he continued, "I had had dalliances and liaisons in the past, but they had always been mostly of the flesh. There had been some connections and friendships, but there had never been love of the kind Matthew and I shared, or that you and I now share. Love was... a surprising thing for me. There were many aspects of a normal life Matthew gave up to share his life with me as I am another man. Being an immortal of the Game also robs a relationship of normalcy, though there is a fair amount of overlap. There were simply things I could not give him and cannot give you." 

Henry rotated his hands, shifting his gaze to stare at them. "As you grow older, all I can see is the time of your eventual demise growing nearer. I often wonder if you will reach that end with regret and resentment." 

"Regret and resentment about what?" Fish asked, confused. 

"Will you begin to resent staring at perpetual youth and life as you age? As your own body ages, mine will remain unchanged. You are my husband and I am yours, but I cannot grow old with you. Such a normal aspect of marriage and love is lost to us." 

"We've talked about that, Henry," Fish said with a slight frown. "The fact that you're physically a teenager used to grate at my male vanity a little. I worried that you'd lose interest in me as I turned into an old man. I worried you wouldn't find me attractive anymore, that you'd rather go out and find someone who could still get it up. But that's an old insecurity. I'm over it. I still don't think I'm following you." 

"While Matthew and I had a great many more restrictions on our life together, we do not. We share our love openly and you are my lawfully wedded husband. But there are still things I cannot give you." Henry's gaze flicked to the mobile telephone on the coffee table. "I cannot give you a family." 

Fish remembered the flicker of jealousy on Henry's face. "Henry, I know I deal with aliens and time travel, but this is the twenty-first century. Two men cannot have a child together." 

"That is true, but I cannot give you children of my own flesh to cherish and raise," Henry said, regretfully. His eyes never left the mobile phone. "The immortality of my own body has robbed me of that blessing." 

"But Olivia has given me David and David is a piece of her and me," Fish said, quietly.

Henry nodded. "A gift from God, born from a union of love." 

Fish reached across the sofa cushion for Henry's hand. "I wish we could have children together, Henry. It's a crazy fantasy that I have sometimes." 

They sat in silence for a few moments, holding hands. Henry squeezed Fish's hand and let go, his arms crossed over his middle. In a low, almost frightened voice, Henry asked, "Do you miss them?" 

“Miss who?” Fish asked.

“Women,” Henry admitted. 

Fish’s eyebrows shot up. It was an absurd question, but its roots slowly dawned on him. It seems he wasn't the only one with insecurities about their relationship. Fish crossed his arms over his chest and thought about it for a few moments.

“I haven't thought about it in either a physical or an emotional sense." He paused. "Well, actually, wait, that's not true. Ianto and I had a bloke versus bird discussion once. Did you miss men when you were with Margaret?"

Henry confessed, "I did. Her body, while lovely and attractive, was foreign to me. I missed the, for lack of a better word, maleness of other men with which I was familiar and enthusiastically enjoyed for centuries."

Fish sat and thought for a moment. "I don't feel like my sex life with you is missing anything. I have never gone to bed with you wishing you had a woman's body. I will admit that I'm still surprised by how fucking sexy I find you." He gave his husband a one shouldered shrug. "But even though I find you sexy as hell, I'm not gay, Henry. Sexuality is on a spectrum and we're on opposite sides of the scale. I do notice beautiful women, but that has nothing to do with missing women. It's just my dick pointing itself in the direction of what it likes." 

"Or what it liked," Henry said, softly. 

Fish's temper flared at the accusation. He managed to rein in the feeling before he began an angry defense. After taking a deep breath and counting to ten in his head, he understood the insecurity wasn't a rational one. He said, "Olivia has hurt me in a lot of unforgivable ways and I fucking hate her for it. It's this raw, primal hatred that wants to sit in my stomach and burn its way up to my heart. But she's the mother of my child, Henry. We're tied together for the rest of our lives now, as much as if I'd married her. The one thing I always heard from my friends whose parents were divorced was how much they hated being in the middle and used by their parents to get back at each other. I won't do that to my son and the only way for me to stand to be in the same room with her is to forgive her."

He sighed. "'Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.'" 

"Ephesians 4:31." 

Fish nodded. "Even though the last thing I feel towards her is forgiving, I still need to forgive her. I can't move forward and be a part of David's life, if I can't forgive Olivia, because that anger and bitterness will spill over. That anger is what I'm letting go of when I forgive her. I might not want to, but David is the embodiment of everything that Olivia did wrong. I can't look at him and see everything that was taken from me. Forgiving her helps set my heart free." He paused and took another deep breath. "I need to learn to be a partner of hers again, Henry. And the only place I know where to look for that is back when we were partners. I'm sorry if it looked affectionate or romantic."

Henry visibly relaxed, but looked around their lounge. "Things are not as robust as I believed." 

Fish took Henry's hand again. "I'd like your permission to tell Doc Vasquez about your immortality and the Game. And then I'd like for us to start seeing him together." 

After a moment's hesitation, Henry nodded. A wash of relief came over Fish. For the first time in a long while, he didn't feel the Grim Reaper standing behind him, which was strange given what he was about to say. 

He cleared his throat and said, "I know we just got done talking about how to not obsess about my dying, but I need your help with something, Henry."

"Of course, Joe," Henry replied. 

Fish's plan poured out of him like a waterfall. When he was done, he was certain Henry's head was spinning, but his husband agreed to help him. Though Fish wanted to get everything accomplished as fast as possible, it still took him over a month to get everything sorted. 

It seemed like a ridiculous thing to do. He hadn't been blowing smoke up Henry's arse telling him that his chances of death by Torchwood were greatly reduced, but Joseph Fischer was a man who liked to be prepared. And Torchwood or no Torchwood, death was a certainty. 

Fish stepped backwards to take in the near bursting storage unit with a heavy heart. 

Every birthday and holiday after his father had died, all Fish had been able to think think about was how his father hadn't been there to celebrate with him. At every significant turn in his life, he thought about how his parents weren’t there to guide him through it or to share in it with him. Whether it was a piece of alien space junk, a drunk driver, or cancer, he would spare his son as much of that pain as he could. Fish had never asked Henry for a penny in their entire relationship, until now.

The storage unit was jammed packed with boxes, brightly coloured, and perfectly wrapped. If he died tomorrow, inside this storage unit was a gift for every Christmas and birthday he would miss from now until David turned fifty. The first package on the left had a large glittered eleven taped to its side. A huge lump formed in his throat at the letter attached to it. If he lived to see David’s eleventh birthday, he would present David with both the gift and letter anyway. He let his gaze wander to the right, to the box marked with the twelve all the way through to the twenty, the twenty one, twenty two, all the way to thirty, and the forty.  

It wasn’t just birthdays. There were also red and green decked gifts for Christmas and a whole pile of boxes for no reason or holiday at all.

Each brightly wrapped gift also had an accompanying letter and stick drive with a video of himself speaking. There were letters and talks expressing Fish's views on sexuality and marriage, to be opened when appropriate. There was another for when he welcomed his own first born into the world as well as letters and videos detailing advice about anything and everything Fish could think of to offer. He had also set aside a small amount of money so that, when of age, David could purchase a car.

The lump in his throat grew larger as he saw the keys of his own first car attached to the appropriate letter. The stick drive contained a dash cam video of Fish explaining how to operate a vehicle and obey the laws of the road. He wanted nothing more than to live long enough to teach David to drive, to yell at him the first time he got a ticket or crashed the car.

_Tomorrow is promised to no_ _one..._

To Fish, the most important contents of this storage unit weren't the gifts, but the letters and videos. He’d tried to pour as much wisdom as he could into them, but most of all, he'd tried to convey a sense of himself. Tears began to flow as he sent a prayer into the universe that this storage unit would be the largest unnecessary expense of his life.

He took another step back, and encountered a warm body. He turned, startled. “Ianto…”

Ianto’s eyes were full of tears and he said, “I don’t know if that’s the most brilliant or the saddest thing that I will ever see.”

“How...?”

“Your financials. There are signs when a Torchwood operative is going to do a runner or go rogue so the system looks for them automatically. You and Henry spent a lot of money in a short amount of time. It triggered an alert,” he said, shrugging.

“You didn’t really think-”

“No, of course not. But this was the last thing I thought you were doing, mate.” He quickly wiped his eyes.  

Fish let the tears flow freely. The plea rose up in him and with an unsteady voice, he begged, "I just found him, Ianto, and I almost lost him. We barely know each other, but I'm going to spend every second from now until the day I die changing that. But if something happens to me before I get that chance, don't you dare let him forget me." He turned and gave his friend a piercing gaze. "Don't you fucking dare. He’s my son, Ianto. Please.”

“I swear, on my head, Fish. I won’t this time.”


	12. Epilogue

Trying to keep from nervously jiggling his leg, Ben shifted his weight in the uncomfortable chair. He'd been waiting nearly a half hour. With each passing minute, his anxiety ratcheted up a notch. 

"Ben Murphy?" the woman said, politely.

Ben stood, raising his hand. Even though he was the only person there, he said, "Yeah, right here."

"I'm Lois Habiba," she said, holding out her hand. "If you'll follow me please.

Ben shook the hand and followed her to the appropriate office.

"Ah, Mr. Murphy. Please, come in. No need to dawdle," the man said. He stood, gesturing Ben forward. "Have a seat."

"I'd prefer to stand, Mr. Frobisher."

"Of course," he said, with a smile. He switched his attention and said, "Thank you, Lois."

"Tea? Coffee?" she asked. "Biscuits?"

Frobisher nodded and turned to Ben. "Refreshment?"

"No, thank you," Ben said, stiffly.

"I should tell you, Mr. Murphy, that I was very enthusiastic about your recruitment," Frobisher said, sitting. "It's taken us years to get someone inside of Harkness's organization." 

"Was there a specific reason for this summons to Home Office, sir?" Ben asked. Annoyed, he said, "This could potentially blow my cover. Jack Harkness isn't a fool and Ianto Jones is very preceptive."

"In fact, there is something wrong, Mr. Murphy," Frobisher said, leaning back in his chair. "We recruited you to get a better look at what precisely is going on inside of Torchwood. But as of late, your reports have had been somewhat lacking. You claim Harkness trusts you and that you have full access to the Archive, the mainframe, their databases, yet we've seen no real evidence of that in any of your reports. I might as well read the blasé reports submitted by Mr. Jones or Ms. Richards. And I am beginning to wonder what we need you for." 

"There's nothing much to report, Mr. Frobisher," Ben said, rolling his eyes. "Stuff falls through the rift, they pick it up, and lock it in the Archive. Hardly scintillating."

"Absent from your report is that Harkness, under instruction from UNIT, was required to sanitize the recent situation," Frobisher said. 

"I left the fact absent because, firstly, I assumed you'd know that, and secondly, I wasn't informed of any such decision," Ben replied, simply. 

Frobisher turned and laced his fingers together, resting them on his desk. "Mr. Murphy, you're in this situation because you were caught attempting to access portions of the UNIT mainframe to which you did not have access for the purposes of illegally obtaining information and selling it."

He stood and added, sternly, "Your decision making abilities have been suspended. You no longer are permitted to make assumptions, especially about what may or may not be pertinent."

He sat back down, giving Ben an impatient look. "Were you aware Harkness sent Doctor Ryan to carry out those directives?"

Ben shook his head. "No, I wasn't."

Clearly not believing him, Frobisher said, "So Doctor Ryan's 'medical conference' didn't appear well timed to you?"

"I don't pay attention to the personal lives of the team," Ben replied.

Frobisher tapped the paper in front of him. "Which brings me to the second point that there is a distinct lack of anything personal."

Not bothering to hid his annoyance, Ben said, "I wasn't under the impression I was report on the team's personal lives."

"Which brings me back to the aforementioned warning about assumptions," Frobisher countered. He tapped the folder. "There is no mention of Fischer's son or Richards's nightly activities with Harkness and Jones, nor Cooper's miscarriage."

_If you know all that shite already, why do I need to tell you?_  Ben wondered, angry.

"We want everything, Mr. Murphy. If I ask you to obtain the length and girth of Harkness's cock, your next question should be imperial or metric!" Frobisher snapped.

"I can't imagine how I would obtain that information," Ben said, dryly.

"Get on your knees and figure it out," Frobisher added.  

Ben said stepped forward and slammed his finger down on the desk. "You lot may have me by the bollocks, but I'm not whoring myself out!"

"You should climb down from that high horse, Mr. Murphy, because even though you're not bending over for Harkness, it's precisely what it is you're doing," Frobisher said. "Because if you want us to knock you down from that high horse, you'll slide straight into a UNIT cell for the rest of your days."  

Ben straightened and stepped back. 

"Good," Frobisher said. He sat back down and tapped the intercom on his phone. 

Almost immediately, the door behind Ben opened. "We best start seeing results, Mr. Murphy, because there are other options." 

"Ah, Doctor Patanjali, do come in, please," Frobisher said.

The man looked surprised to see Ben. His expression went from confusion to recognition. "Mr... Murphy? Was it? How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Ben replied. He turned to Frobisher. "Am I dismissed, sir?"

"No, you are not, Mr. Murphy. It's our conclusion that you require further incentive," Frobisher said. He stepped out from behind his desk and said, "It's well known to this office that Captain Harkness has a certain Lazarus quality to him. He's like a bad penny. What was also left out of your report, Mr. Murphy, is that Mr. Jones appears to have this quality as well." 

Ben tried not to show any outward reaction. He had been purposefully making his reports to Home Office vague, leaving out personal details, as well as anything about Ianto and Miranda's immortality. This entire arrangement had been a stall until he could figure out what to do, or elicit Jack's help. Now he was out of time. His deception had been noticed and he'd been painted into a corner. 

"I'd like this investigated, using whatever means necessary," Frobisher said. 

Ben gave Patanjali a once over, then turned on his heel and walked away. Patanjali said, "May the best man win, eh?" 

Ben kept walking, but said, "I'm the only who's already in."

Frobisher reminded him, "And there's a queue behind you."


End file.
